ALISON AUCONE/Sun-Gazette Participants walk the first lap at the Relay for Life at the Lycoming College Recreation Center on Friday.

Generation Y is often stereotyped as having a poor work ethic and not caring about important causes, but area teens proved that isn’t the case by organizing an All-Youth Relay for Life.

The event began Friday night at 6 p.m. and will end this morning at 6 a.m. Teams of anywhere from 3 to 18 people participate in the event and must have one team member walking the track at all times.

Lycoming College Recreation Center hosted the event and U.S. Rep. Chris Carney, D-Dimock, was the keynote speaker at the opening ceremony.

Carney, a cancer survivor himself, said that cancer touches everyone.

“Those who have been diagnosed with cancer usually think of it as a death sentence, but it is not,” Carney said. And there were six other survivors at the event that took the first lap, dubbed the survivor lap around the track with Carney.