The Lloydminster Chapter of the MS Society is hosting their major fundraising and awareness event soon.
The Jayman Built MS Walk is coming up Saturday, April 30th. Unfortunately, registration for this year’s walk is historically low.
“We had about 600 walkers last year. Right now, we’re sitting at 104,” says Patty Milnthorp, Programs and Services Coordinator at the local Chapter. “So we’re hurtin’… even though it’s ‘Last Minute Lloyd,’ you know, it’s still quite low.”
The event offers walks and races for a variety of skill levels and desired competitiveness; there is a 1-kilometer walk, a 5-kilometer, and a 10-kilometer, as well as both 5-kilometer and 10-kilometer races.
Participants can register for free for the walks and sign up for the races for $55.00. Sign-up can be done online at http://mssoc.convio.net/site/TR?fr_id=4949&pg=entry or by calling the Chapter office at 1‑780‑871‑0513. Ideally, participants will raise money for the Society via collecting pledges, but donations are not mandatory in order to participate.
Despite having low registration numbers, Milnthorp remains hopeful.
“A lady from Wainwright took a whole bunch of brochures and a whole bunch of pledge kits with her back to Wainwright. So I’m sure we’ll have lots of people from Wainwright coming. So that’s really good and the website is also on the brochures so I’m sure that’ll go out into the community and that’ll help drum up some more people.”
As well, the week after Walk, before Mother’s Day, is the MS Society’s Carnation Campaign. As May is MS Awareness Month and carnation is the Society’s flower, the group sells carnations throughout the week at different local stores to raise funds and further awareness.
“We do to Synergy Credit Union, Servus Credit Union in the Atrium Centre, and we got to RBC, Superstore, Co-op, and a few other places, but we sell potted carnations and bouquets of carnations,” says Milnthorp.
The Chapter will be out selling carnations the Thursday, May 5th and Friday the 6th.