These photos depict the giant Luminaria bag created by the 2007 Relay For Life of Brandeis University Luminaria Committee. The bag was about 7 feet tall, constructed of PVC pipe and white butchers paper. Measurements were taken of a real Luminaria and then increased to ensure that the giant bag was built to scale.

During the Luminaria ceremony each of the participants was given a glow stick. They were asked to crack their glow sticks and place them in the Luminaria bag depending how they were touched by cancer. The first and last people to drop their glow sticks in the bag were survivors. I pasted the script below so that you can see the cues that we used. The giant bag really added something special to the Luminaria ceremony. It gave each participant a chance to be part of the ceremony and honor and remember people in their lives. It was incredible to see the bag come to life- it glowed very brightly once all of the glow sticks had been placed in it. The sounds of the glow sticks falling into the bag was really touching. You knew that each glow stick represented at least one person in the community who had been touched by cancer. It was a great visual to add to the Luminaria ceremony. The lights around the Luminaria bag are Christmas lights strung in the shape of a ribbon. The giant Luminaria bag was paced out prior to the ceremony for participants to sign and write messages on. Luminaria bags were also sold, and lined the track at the event.

Here is the Luminaria script:

If you are here as a survivor, we celebrate you and ask you to please light your glowstick now.

If you are honoring your father or mother, please light your glowstick now.

If you are honoring a brother or sister, please light your glowstick now.

If you are honoring your husband, wife or partner, please light your glowstick now.

If you are honoring your son or daughter, please light your glowstick now.

If you are honoring a grandparent, aunt, uncle, cousin, or other relative, please light your glowstick now.Friends are treasures that can never be replaced.

If you are honoring a friend, neighbor, or community member, please light your glowstick now.

If you are fortunate enough to not know anyone afflicted with cancer, please light your glowstick now and let us honor you and your selflessness in joining our fight.

Tonight, we honor, celebrate, and remember those for whom we have lit glowsticks. This light represents the love we have for you. It burns for others to see but it burns brightest in our hearts and in our souls. Those whose lives we celebrate and share in, we will continue this fight for you. Those whose memory we honor, you were and always will be a part of us. Though we do not see you, we know you are with us.

At this time we would like to call for a moment of silence to honor our dear loved ones, living and lost.

Finally, let us honor our caregivers, those of you who have battled this merciless disease at our sides. To the tireless professionals devoted to folks like me - the nurses, doctors, hospice workers, research scientists, and clergy of the world – we light our glowsticks in honor of you and offer you a very humble and heartfelt thank you. Without you we would never be cured, never be healed, and would never have the chance to be victorious.

And to our other caregivers - our family and friends… You have helped us to endure our treatments through the trauma of hair loss, pain, sickness, and debilitation. You have sustained our suffering, given us strength, enabled us to persevere, and, in many cases, you have been strong and brave enough to let us go. We light our glowsticks to honor and appreciate YOU: our sons, our daughters, our grandchildren, nieces and nephews. We honor YOU: our brothers, our sisters, our cousins, our partners, our friends. The diagnosis of cancer can be a very long journey - one that is very difficult to travel alone – thanks to you, we haven’t had to.