Heather Latter
The “Walk for Alzheimer’s” held here Saturday has been deemed one of the best yet after it raised $7,497.
“It’s amazing,” enthused Rossana Tomashowski, executive director of the Alzheimer Society Kenora/Rainy River Districts, noting 48 pledge collectors participated in the event.
“It was just so fun—it was sunny, there was a barbecue, and everybody got together,” she remarked.
“For the last five years I’ve been at the [Alzheimer] Society, it was the best ever.
“It was just wonderful,” Tomashowski added. “People were amazing.”
It seems the changes to the event helped with its success.
“A new walk, new location, new hope—that’s the whole idea to revamp it,” Mary O’Connor, client services co-ordinator with the Alzheimer Society of Kenora-Rainy River Districts, said of the new walk.
It’s now dubbed “Walk for Alzheimer’s” instead of “Walk for Memories,” as it previously was called.
“They wanted to unify it across Ontario so everybody is supposed to be doing it in the spring now,” she noted.
The “Walk for Memories” had been held in October and the weather often was on the cooler side.
“But the weather [this year] was perfect,” Tomashowski noted.
“It’s always difficult the first year to change things . . . but June is actually a better month for the walk, as busy as we are,” she reasoned.
“I think we’ll see more people participating and bringing awareness to the community,” Tomashowski added, noting she’d also like to see more partnership between agencies.
Another change to the event was its start location, which was moved to the Sorting Gap Marina along the riverfront from the New Beginnings Fellowship.
“You don’t have to cross any roads, which is nice, and it’s a beautiful place to walk along the river,” O’Connor said.
She noted they also switched the walk from an afternoon event to the morning, with a barbecued lunch back at the Sorting Gap Marina afterwards.
O’Connor explained the event was divided into walks that went simultaneously—a 2K version that headed from the Sorting Gap west to La Verendrye Hospital and a 5K route that went from the Sorting Gap to the Point and back.
Tomashowski, meanwhile, said she was pleased to see so many teams taking part.
One team, named “Carolyn’s Crew” and led by Sandy Skirten of the local Canadian Mental Health Association, was there top group, raising more than $3,000.
There was also Team Dave, Team Grampy, Team Blaine Orr, and Team Rainycrest, as well as numerous individual participants.
Blaine Orr was acknowledged as the top individual fundraiser.
Tomashowski added there were plenty of donations from local businesses for prizes, in addition to food for the barbecue.
“The fundraising that we do is so that all the education, all the information that we have for the families, is all free,” O’Connor said, adding the local Alzheimer Society only is 45 percent funded by the government.
She noted not every Alzheimer Society offers the education and materials for free.
“Across Ontario you have to pay to go to some of them,” O’Connor remarked.
“We don’t want to do that. We want everything free,” she stressed. “So that’s why we do the fundraisers.”
Tomashowski said the “Walk for Alzheimer’s” will be held in June again next year and she’s hoping to build on the success of this year’s event.
“It can only get better from here,” she mused.
