Participants in the university’s Relay for Life Friday shattered the campus fund-raising and turnout records for the event since students began running it in 1999, coordinators said.

At press time, the university’s teams had raised $70,021, the eighth-highest total nationally, according to senior psychology major Matt Jackowitz, chairman for the university’s Relay for Life committee. Last year’s event raised $37,502.

“I can’t remember a student-run event that’s been over $50,000 since I’ve been on campus,” he said. “I talked to administrators — they’re knocked on their ass.”

Jackowitz said about 900 students from 80 teams signed up for the annual American Cancer Society event, and an additional 300 students showed up Friday evening to support their friends.

About 93 percent of the money the campus raised will fund cancer research and programs, said Cheryl Smith, an American Cancer Society representative. The other 7 percent covered the cost of security and use of the field.

A disc jockey from Hot 99.5 FM and four bands, including Battle of the Bands finalist Exit 25, played while walkers and runners made laps around the Ludwig Field track in celebration of cancer survivors and in memory of those who lost their lives to Cancer.

“It’s representative of us fighting for a cure for cancer,” Jackowitz said. “You can’t do something on your own like you can with 700 people.”

During a ceremony in which candlelit bags, or luminarias, were placed around the soccer field in honor of cancer victims, a capella group the Treblemakers sang and Gloria Friedgen, wife of football head coach Ralph Friedgen, read names of students’ loved ones who had died of or were fighting the disease.

“It’s a lot of people from all different corners of the university, and we’re all coming together for a common goal,” said Jackowitz, who lost two grandmothers and a cousin to cancer. “You don’t get a lot of that in this community.”

Stacey Horenberg, chair of the luminaria ceremony, said the committee started planning the event in November and got the word out to make this year’s activity better than in the past.

“We were selling [the relay] as a fun event to be at,” she said. “It totally impresses me — that especially since last year — that we can get college kids involved to this degree.”

Jackowitz said the relay committee refined the way the event was run last year by working to attract more business sponsorship while building the event itself by bringing student bands.

In an unprecedented outpouring of food donations, Papa John’s, Bagel Place, Pita Pit and Gill’s Grill donated about 160 pizzas, 250 bagels, 250 pitas, 300 burgers, 300 hot dogs and 300 chicken breasts. The university also attracted donations for the American Cancer Society by selling advertising spaces on the track for $500 or $1,000.

“This community did a lot of great things for cancer research,” Jackowitz said. “It’s starting to become something where this is going to become a signature event at Maryland.”

Jackowitz said people can donate on the American Cancer Society’s website at www.cancer.org until graduation.

The society is a nationwide, community-based voluntary health organization headquartered in Atlanta with 3,400 local offices.