Like the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life Walk, the Arthritis Foundation hosts an annual Arthritis Walk, which they use to raise money for research. Millions have been helped through arthritis research, but there are more every day who find themselves having to work through joint or even muscle pain on a daily basis.

“We are ready to get things going this year to help make even more progress in our efforts to find a cure for arthritis,” Regional Development Director Katherine Maybank said.

This year’s walk is set to take place on October 4. The arthritis board decided Wednesday at a lunch meeting at Helen’s Place that the location of the walk would be left alone this year and will remain at Chilton Medical Center Hospital. The walk is held there annually, and they plan to keep the tradition going.

Walk officials also hope to reach their goals again this year. Last year, they were able to raise more than their set goal, and this year, they hope to do that again.

“We ended up having a really good year last year. We are doing things a little faster this year, so we are hoping that we can still reach our goal before the end of our walk in October,” board member Dian Easterling said.

The new goals for this year were set as $35,000 and 15-20 teams. The kick-off for the arthritis walk has been set for the end of August, and the date and time will be announced at the next meeting, set to take place on August 6 at Helen’s Place.

For questions about becoming a sponsor, part of a team or to make a donation, call Easterling at 755-2366.

This year’s committee members and duties are as follows:

Dian Easterling has graciously agreed to serve as Chair for the Walk this year and as you know, she does an amazing job. She works harder than anyone I know and is a wonderful example of leadership and passion. Dian could use a great Vice Chair to mentor and train that will step up to Chair next year.

Willie Lenoir and Sandy Wyatt have agreed to serve together as Team Recruitment Chairs. They could use several helpers to cover all the team options in town. If they have committee members that will cover team recruitment for civic organizations, churches, schools, etc. We will certainly surpass our goals. There were some great ideas to recruit teams and raise money from “cut a thon” to “Quarters for a Cure” and many others that sprang up from the discussions.

The comedy team of Keith Easterling and Mike Cooper will serve as co-chairs of the Sponsorship committee. At present Dian is sending out about 45 letters requesting sponsorship of the walk and Keith and Mike will be following up with them to secure the “foundation” for the walk and insure the sponsors are treated well at the event.

Ann Glasscok has graciously accepted the challenge to be the Logistics Chair and she will be asking for help to make the logistics of the event to run smoothly. The Logistics committee has several sub committees that we still need volunteers to fill. They are: Refreshment Coordinator; Route Leader, Event Site Leader, and Volunteer Recruitment Leader, to name a few. Again, the more people we have filling positions, the more we can get done. 🙂

Vanessa McKinney has taken on the role of Health and Wellness Coordinator as this will make the event a huge success too. People really want to get ‘checked out” and learn about their health.

Amy Easterling & Nanette Easterling will be working on Quarters for a Cure and Run For Arthritis to help promote the event in the schools and will also work on getting the PSA’s on the air at local churches and other media outlets.