The annual campaign aims to spread awareness of cancer and raise funds for research.

Kotara High School has been raising money for the Newcastle/Lake Macquarie Relay For Life since 2006.

Throughout the year students sell raffle tickets and collect donations from teachers. But it all leads up to one event: the mini Relay For Life.

The mock event started in 2009 with PE teacher Kira Threadgate, who joined the school in 2007, which, coincidentally, was the first year she entered the Newcastle/Lake Macquarie Relay For Life at Glendale's Hunter Sports Centre.

She participated in memory of her aunt and former Kotara High teacher, Sandra Martin, who lost her battle with pancreatic cancer a year earlier.

Miss Threadgate hatched the idea for the mini relay on top of fund-raising that the school was already doing.

The students threw their support behind her and raised $6366.15 at the first mini relay - the most they have raised in any one year.

Each year Miss Threadgate's year 10 sports studies class organises the event. This year's class was busy preparing for the 2014 mini relay as The Star went to print.

Year 7 to 10 students lapped Hudson Park on Tuesday and enjoyed fun and games such as water balloon fights and lolly guessing competitions.

Newly inducted Relay For Life youth ambassadors Ryan Mahony and Rizina Yadov joined them. The two year 9 Warners Bay High and Merewether High students were the first ambassadors chosen to represent secondary schools - a demographic the Cancer Council felt it wasn't engaging with.

Ryan and Rizina spoke to the students about the Cancer Council's role and where donations go.

■The 2014 Newcastle/Lake Macquarie Relay For Life will be held at Glendale's Hunter Sports Centre on Saturday, November 1. Go to relayforlife.org.au.