A simple track, a few hundred people and a community full of love and compassion will make magic tonight.

The Miss-Lou Relay for Life will get under way at 6 p.m. at the Concordia Recreation Complex near the Vidalia Walmart.

The annual fundraiser for the American Cancer Society is a single night devoted to cancer awareness and research, but for many of the volunteer organizers and teams, the event is a yearlong process.

The result of all of that hard work is an enormous amount of money raised to fund research into cancer cures and treatments.

If you’ve never attended a Relay event, please consider going tonight and purchasing some food or drinks from the teams aiming to raise money to donate to the American Cancer Society. Of course, if you’re unable to attend, simply make a donation to the group.

Sadly, cancer seems to touch almost every local resident in some form or fashion, and the diagnosis can be a devastating one for many people.

Often, when the diagnosis occurs, people feel helpless. But cancer does not always have to be a terminal diagnosis. Enormous strides have been made by the generous donations that Relay for Life events all across the nation have made.

Who knows, the dollars you give to the cause may be the very dollar needed to allow some kind of break-through, game-changing research.