Neat update on an event...

I got this email from my father last night...and thought I would share. We have posted about these two events on this blog. As a matter of fact, the first year this event was held was my very first post on this blog!

As most of you know, Chris founded and is president of an organization to combat Parkinson’s Disease. Each of the last two falls – in very early October – we’ve had a walk to raise funds to contribute money to research and to support local county folks who have the disease. Last year, we raised over $20,000(!!!), $10,000 of which went to dedicate a room in the new local hospital wing to Parkinson’s Disease; this year, the total was about $14,000. Any of you who know anything about local fundraising will know these are fairly incredible amounts. Again, many of you know that Chris’ mom has PD…which is what started all this. Each year, we dedicate the walk to a local sufferer or two, and a plaque is displayed at the site; Chris’ mom and another Uhrichsville man were the recipients the first year, with two others from the county in the year just past.



Part of our success the first year was our coordination of our event with the groundbreaking of the new hospital wing (“We ‘dig’ walking for a cure…”)…which is big news in any small town. Since such events don’t occur every year, we decided to walk at the same time each year, and, in keeping with our “dig” walk theme begun the year before, dig and plant a tulip garden at the culmination of the walk. Tulips are the symbol for Parkinson’s Disease, both nationally and internationally, and our thinking is, since the flowers are perennials, we will move around the county each year doing the same thing…and, eventually, there will be tulip gardens blooming all over the county each spring.



Last October, our walk was held at Buckeye Career Center, where I work. The students in the Landscaping Department there designed and dug the tulip garden; our walkers just had to insert bulbs and cover them.

Right now, those tulips have begun to bloom. Here are a couple shots, taken by the school PR person, showing the planting…which consisted of a “swoosh” of about 200 bulbs on each side of the Buckeye Career Center sign in front of the building. Pretty cool. Enjoy!