Marlin Daniels gives a thumbs up as she joins her friends during a walk for Alzheimers on Tuesday. (Dale Boyd / Osoyoos Times)
By Dale Boyd
Osoyoos Times
Residents of an Osoyoos assisted living facility were out for some fresh air and to create awareness of Alzheimer’s Tuesday.
Twelve residents of Mariposa Gardens, along with friends, volunteers and a few canine companions, took a walk along the lake to help raise awareness and funds for the cause.
Chelsey Hrabar, director of resident programs at Mariposa, said the Walk in a Box event has been raising money for the Alzheimer’s Society of BC all week. On Tuesday they were about $100 shy of their $900 goal.
“It’s a way of fundraising, creating awareness and helping to create a more dementia-friendly society and trying to find resources for Alzheimer’s and other dementias,” Hrabar said.
• Read more: Keeping mind active key in reducing Alzheimer’s risk
The walks and other fundraising events have been taking place for the better part of a decade, and some progress has been made in that time, Hrabar said.
“There’s more awareness, there’s more dementia friendly societies. There’s still a long ways to go, but this is a good start and starts us off to where we need to be going,” Hrabar said. “(The residents) get to come out, they get to support what is happening to people around them. Some of them will have dementia and Alzheimer’s.”
Volunteer, care aid and member of the Mariposa Gardens auxiliary, Lynne Hesketch, came out to support the walk Tuesday.
A care aid for 20 years, she said incidents of the disease are getting higher and higher all the time.
“That’s what I saw as a care aid and we just have to try and find a cure,” Hesketch said.
“It’s a horrible disease for families. It affects everybody, the care aids, the kids, the grandchildren.”
For more information visit wwww.alzheimer.ca/en/bc.
