TIFTON — Members of the Tiftarea community paraded through Downtown Tifton as one Saturday morning, determined to walk alongside the fight against Alzheimer’s disease.

Dozens of local residents took part in the local division of the Walk to End Alzheimer’s, a fundraising event organized by the international nonprofit Alzheimer’s Association, walking in support of the organization’s mission of helping those afflicted by the disease and research a cure for it.

Following the success and reception of last year’s event, the walk was brought back to Downtown Tifton, though with modifications to the starting and ending locations, route, and start time.

While the new schedule may have had walkers taking off under a hot morning sun, participants started and finished their marathon at the Tifton Gardens in Downtown Tifton.

Walk manager Chrystal Bell explained that the change in the start and finish line, as well as the new route, which took participants more extensively through Downtown Tifton as well as onto Commerce Way, was to present the walkers to the local businesses and allow them to stop their walk early and return to Tifton Gardens if needed.

Prior to the walk’s start, various heads of the event took to the stage to express their appreciation for those in attendance and share words of advice and inspiration about dealing with or caring for someone with Alzheimer’s.

Alec Joiner, chair of the Walk to End Alzheimer’s Committee, thanked both volunteers and walkers for taking the time out of their busy lives to show their support for the cause.

Becky Jones of assisted living facility Cypress Pond spoke on her experience taking care of people with the disease, both in her career and her personal family, and encouraged the walkers to show strength for the people in their life going through Alzheimer’s and reassure them they don’t have to feel ashamed of having the diagnosis.

Jones stressed the importance of identifying the threat of the ailment as soon as possible for the sake of preparing emotionally and financially, but to also strive to view victims of Alzheimer’s not simply as their disease, but who they are beyond it.

“When I go to funerals for my residents — hundreds of people that I’ve taken care of that have passed away from Alzheimer’s — I love the fact that they don’t really mention the fact that they had Alzheimer’s, that they were in the Memory Care Unit,” Jones said. “They focus on their early life, when they were a young mother, a young wife, a daughter. That’s something I try to focus on, too — to see them as the person and not the disease.”

WALB’s Madison Foglio then invited some of the participating walkers onstage, each holding one color of flower represented in the Promise Garden just to the right of the stage, to reaffirm the reasons each person had come out to the event that day.

Whether they were supporting the Alzheimer’s Association’s cause and vision of a world without Alzheimer’s, remembering those lost to the ailment, supporting family or loved ones dealing with the disease, or struggling with it themselves, each member of the crowd was asked to hold their flower high in solidarity with their respective color on stage.

Foglio then asked the crowd to keep their flowers aloft in honor of the fifth flower onstage, a white flower meant to represent the first survivor of Alzheimer’s.

“We must continue to lead the way because together, we can end Alzheimer’s,” Foglio said. “We do have more work to do, but we are ready to do it. Because you walk, we are closer right now than ever to living in a world without Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia.”

Once the walk began, participants trekked all over Downtown Tifton, heading past the library, an auto show set up by the Tiftarea Auto Club in support of the event, and several local businesses. 

Volunteers from Tift County High School’s HOSA and FFA teams and the ABAC Ambassadors of Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College greeted them at several stops along their trek, offering their cheers and support to the walkers.

When they finished back at Tifton Gardens, the participants passed under the start gate they had left from not an hour earlier, now their finish line, and were given congratulations and refreshments for their efforts in the walk.

Following the event, Bell and Joiner both expressed appreciation for the turnout and support from both volunteers and walkers, counting at least 40 volunteers and 100 walkers having come out for the campaign. 

“The number of people who come out to support and help…I can’t say enough good things about it,” Bell said. “This is a volunteer-led event, and thanks to the volunteers that came out, we’re able to do this walk, hold this event here, so that people in Tifton and the surrounding areas can see that they have support, there are people here for them, and they’re not alone in this fight. We’re really grateful for all the support we get from all of these groups here.”

The two organizers were satisfied with the alterations to the route and start time made to this year’s walk, feeling that these changes had been better received, but planned to reexamine the exact time of year the walk would be held in terms of organizing it later in the year.