Walk Diary: Ajax-Pickering Mandarin MS Walk

Kristin with her Mandarin MS Walk team

We’re back from our brief hiatus to bring you another Walk Diary. That’s right, when we said they don’t stop, we meant it!

This week’s Walk Diary comes from Ajax-Pickering Mandarin MS Walk Committee Member Kristin S.

After participating in the Ajax-Pickering MS Walk as a team captain for 4 years, I was thrilled to be recruited onto the planning committee for 2013.

It definitely takes the entire community to get this giant ball rolling. Every week, I would meet with the planning team, approach potential sponsors, and manage the social networks attached with our local walk. 

One particularly cold day, after seeing their 'grand opening' ad in the Ajax paper, I headed up to a new No Frills grocery store. So many local businesses are already partnered with a charity, so it can be tough to get new ones on board. I was juggling my 2.5 year old, my bag of MS info, a pen, and rehearsing my "The MS Walk is a great event to partner with because..." speech as I went in.

 I met with the owner of Summerhill's No Frills right there in the frozen foods section. He listened intently, and guess what? I didn't even have to finish my well-rehearsed sales pitch! He immediately said "Sounds great. Count us in". WOW. Turns out he knows someone with MS. And isn't that the thing with MS? It is there, in our communities, across our country, and most likely someone in your neighbourhood knows someone with MS, has it themselves, knows of friend of a friend...you get the idea. But it can be a positive thing, because it brings us together. We can carry each other's burdens and support each other, like Summerhill's No Frills did.

Our event had a stellar breakfast to get our participants going! Fresh fruit, juice boxes, granola bars, and of course our Tim Horton's favourites too. And that was just the beginning of a fantastic day, but nearly the end for the planning committee who breathed a collective sigh of relief as the day wrapped up nicely.

If you've been participating in your local MS Walk, why not take the next step and help plan it? Every Step Matters, after all.

Walk Diaries will continue with a recap of the Sudbury Mandarin MS Walk!