After 19 years and $400,000, is the MS Walk finished?

Sherri Duke said she’s probably raised around $400,000 to fight Multiple Sclerosis through charity walk-events over the past 19 years however this year very well could be the last one for MS that she, or perhaps anyone in the Sault, will hold.

On Sunday, this year’s Mandarin MS Walk raised $27,500 as around 150 people walk, ran, and rolled along a course that started at the Roberta Bondar Park & Pavilion, went along downtown Queen Street, and then ended back at the Pavilion.

The raised funds will be portioned out so that 60 per cent goes to MS research and 40 per cent stays in the Sault to help those with MS pay for services like lawn care and to help them purchase equipment like scooters, walkers, canes, incontinence supplies, and air conditioners.

Duke is the vice chair of the Lake Superior and District Chapter of the MS Society of Canada and she started the Sault MS walks 19 years ago after a friend of her mother’s had been diagnosed with the disease.

Duke remembers attending an MS Society of Canada board meeting and after seeing how successful the charity walks were in Toronto she proposed putting a walk on in the Sault.

“The people in Toronto said it wouldn’t work. They said there wouldn’t be support for us here in the Sault but its been amazing ever since 1998,” she said.

Duke has experienced organizational difficulties putting on the charity walk in recent years and now that her husband has recently recovered from a long-term illness she is hoping to spend more time with him.

“After 19 events I’m tired. It’s time for young blood to take over, if they can,” said Duke.

Wendy Thibault, who was first diagnosed with MS 18 years ago, has attended almost all of the MS Walks that Duke has organized.

When Thibault learned that Duke wouldn’t be organizing the walk next year she was surprised and worried about its future.

“I’m really concerned that we will not have a walk next year or beyond if she leaves. I understand the difficulties she’s had but if its not Sherri or one of her family members who puts it on I don’t know if it will even happen. I don't know of anyone else who’s up to doing this job,” said Thibault.

Thibault said over the years Duke has helped her pay for walkers, canes, various supplies, and with snow shoveling services.

“The people that have been involved with this over the years I would say are very thankful for everything Sherri has done. It’s a fun event, I’d hate to see it end."

One of the big fundraising teams at Sunday's walk were Kirsty’s Krushers - more than 60 friends, family, and coworkers that support Kristy Laidlaw, a local woman diagnosed with MS in March last year.

Their group of orange-shirted men, women, children, and dogs raised $9,200.

Laidlaw said a hot day with lots of physical activity can be hard or someone with MS and she said her legs were burning after the walk, which she did in full.

She said that every MS patient has a different experience with the disease and that it’s almost impossible to predict how the disease will progress in a person.

“One day you could be walking and the next you’re in a wheelchair. It can strike that fast,” she said.

Laidlaw explained MS is characterized by “attacks” or “relapses” that are new neurological happenings in the body.

These could be, for example, a tingling in the feet, trouble speaking, weakness or numbness on a part of the body, or quite often some sort of visual impairment.

Whether or not, and to what extent these problems remain depends on the type of MS a person has.

Laidlaw has a form of MS labeled as “relapse-remitting” which means she can have an attack and it will heal a bit but there will always remain a lesion in her brain or spinal cord along with some lesser-issue that will never ever go away.

Duke said she doesn't know for sure but that there are probably around 100 people in Sault Ste. Marie who suffer from MS.

She said now that she is retiring from the walks, she looks back at the last 19 years and is just happy she could make even a tiny bit of a difference for those people.

“Each year has been different and the Sault has had some tough years but no matter what happened each year, even if we didn’t bring in as much money as we did the previous year, my thinking was always that even if we made one dollar it was still a dollar more than what we started with and at least we have raised awareness and let those with MS in Sault Ste. Marie know that we still care about them,” said Duke.