By: Jared Stranberg & Bryan Vomacka
Currently, Alzheimer’s disease is the sixth-leading cause of death in the United States, and the deaths caused by it have increased by 145 percent since 2000. The Alzheimer’s Association aims to change that. Located in central Omaha is one of three Nebraska chapters of the Alzheimer’s Association.
From Aug.25 to Oct. 13, the association has scheduled eight walks across the state to raise funds toward Alzheimer’s awareness and research. Over one thousand participants pre-registered for Omaha’s walk on Sunday morning, raising over $192,000.
Recently, Omaha resident Alison Griffin-Hunter was featured in the Omaha World Herald. She spoke about what it was like to become her mother’s caretaker at the age of 21.
“It just felt like I had to stepup and take care of things,” Griffin-Hunter told the Herald. “I had to become the parent to my sister and my mom.”
Now that her mother has passed, she intended to participate in Sunday’s Walk to End Alzheimer’s, as she has every year since her mother’s diagnosis.Another participant, Maddie Cunningham of UNO, has been raising money to fight Alzheimer’s since she was 5 years old.
“My great-grandma started showing signs of dementia,” Cunningham remembered. “I saw what she was going through and I saw the toll that this disease was taking on our family. I knew that, even at such a young age, I could get involved.”
She started by raising money by hosting bake sales in her driveway. Even after her great-grandmother passed, she continued to raise money through pool parties, school fundraisers, public speaking and church events.
Cunningham, like Griffin-Hunter, has attended the association’s walk every year since she first started raising money. Unfortunately, poor weather led the association to cancel Sunday morning’s walk.
The Association posted a tweet saying that they would keep participants and the public posted on their plans to reschedule the event. To stay informed, check out their website at here.
