Walk to End Alzheimer’s
The Alzheimer’s Association held their annual Walk to End Alzheimer’s.
“The Walk to End Alzheimer’s here in Naperville today is one of the most important events we do all year round. It’s important for two reasons really. The one is to raise awareness, we’re going to have a couple thousand people here today who care a lot about ending this disease, and so it’s just great to see a whole field house,” said Alzheimer’s Association Illinois Chapter Executive Director Patrick Reedy. “But also the money that we’ll raise today, we’ll raise more than half a million dollars as part of our overall walk to end Alzheimer’s across the country to ultimately end this disease and also provide the care and support that we are privileged to provide people with the disease today.”
Alzheimer’s Association
“So we have the opportunity to provide the care and support that those people need – that’s support groups, we have over 100 support groups throughout the state. We have a 24/7 help line that helps people in their greatest time of need often when they have no where else to turn,” said Reedy.
Symbolism of Flowers
“Towards the end of our program right before we walk, people will be asked to raise flowers in the air and the flowers represent different ways that individuals are impacted by the disease,” said Reedy. “So there’s a caregiver flower, there’s a flower for people living with the disease, there’s a flower for people who have lost a loved one to the disease.”
“And then the white flower symbolizes the first survivor. So we’ll have somebody symbolically hold up the white flower because that’s what we’re here for – to find that day when we can have a full walk of of people raising those white flowers because we’ve cured the disease and we’ve ended it. But until then we walk to try to find that first survivor,” said Reedy.
Naperville News 17’s Aysha Ashley Househ reports.
