On Thursday, Oct. 2, Sigma Kappa Sorority and Mortar Board had another successful Alzheimer’s Walk to kick off the Oktoberfest weekend festivities.
The walk had over 400 participants that helped to raise $17,865 dollars for Alzheimer’sresearch. Participants started on Lancaster Hall and walked 1.5 miles around campus, to end at the Chi fountain.
Senior Sigma Kappa sorority sister Samantha Monroe said, “I am really proud of Sigma Kappa and the Longwood campus community for coming out and supporting such a great cause.”
According to Senior Katherine Thiel, who also serves as Sigma Kappa’s Vice President of Philanthropic Service, said that Mortar Board helped a lot with the planning. Mortar Board helped with the hardcore planning. They helped reserve the space and police officers for the event, as well as helped at the actual event as volunteers for the walk. The women of Sigma Kappa Sorority helped a lot with fundraising at the event and the fundraising leading up to the event. Sigma Kappa members also helped out as volunteers, registering people for the walk, handing out awareness flowers and directing participants while they walked.
Thiel said, “Sigma Kappa is really a sorority that leads itself on its philanthropies. One of our biggest philanthropies is gerontology, which is the study of the elderly. I think it was in the 70’s when Sigma Kappa picked up Alzheimer’s research, because then, and still now, it is one of the top ten reasons of death.”
At the walk, participants were able to walk with flowers that symbolized different colors. The blue flower was if you had Alzheimer’s, yellow was if you were a current caregiver or supporting someone with the disease, orange was if you had no connection, but supported the cause and purple was for walkers who had lost someone to Alzheimer’s disease.
A junior,Sigma Kappa member, Emily Hume, said, “I know a lot of people who have lost their lives to Alzheimer’s. I recently lost my nana to Alzheimer’s, and last year was the first year I was able to do something in memory of her, until this walk. I am walking for multiple people, and this year it is even more meaningful.”
Leading up to the event, Sigma Kappa organized many different ways in which people could donate. Theil stated that many of the donations were made online and from local nursing homes around the town of Farmville. The biggest donation that was received was a $6,000 donation from a nursing home in Clarksville, Virginia.
Sigma Kappa also raised over 2,000 dollars by itself, through sending emails, tabling in the dining hall and fundraising around Farmville. Sigma Kappa’s goal was to raise $11,000, but they far exceeded that goal by raising over $17,000. They are going to continue to raise money for Alzheimer’s research until Dec. 15.
Thiel said, “We are thinking we will see about 20,000 dollars.”Jennifer Chavez, a development manager for the Alzheimer’s Association said this about Sigma
Kappa at Longwood University,
“They have created the awareness, and have made Alzheimer’s more important. If you have a brain, you are eligible for this disease, unfortunately. One of the youngest cases, and one of the newest cases, that person was diagnosed at the age of thirty, and
that is not far from where you guys are in college.”
