The 2013 Challenge Walk is Over…Now What?

by Marian Rezel

Celebrate and share pictures

• Send your supporters a thank you card. Include how much $$ the walk raised or how much $$ you or your team raised. Include a photo from the event. Supporters really appreciate this and are more likely to support you next year. 

Members of Marian's team at the
Challenge Walk MS 2013 finish line.

Plan for next year

• On our way home from Door County to Milwaukee in Car #1, two of my daughters brainstormed ideas for a rest-stop for next year. Meanwhile in Car #2, my other daughter and I talked about what went best and what we could improve on for next year.   
• Plan fund-raising ideas for next year. I am back at my sewing machine, filling orders for hand-made purses and aprons. I’m hoping to actually get ahead this year and open an Etsy shop on-line. We are also finishing the final hand knit hat orders for Tadpoles in Delafield, Wis. The lovely shop owners have been supporting our mission for the past three years; stop in if you are in the Delafield area.
  
• We are also planning a major fund-raising event in the Milwaukee area, more to come on that as soon as it develops. 

Keep connected

• Read the blog, go ahead and post a comment or two, too (or is it tu-tu?). We love hearing back from you.
  
• Create a Facebook group for your team. It’s an easy way to share thoughts and ideas and plan fundraising.
  
• Participate in another MS event. My girls and I participate in Walk MS each spring and sponsored a rest stop at the Bike MS: Best Dam Bike Ride last summer (awesome, going to do that again).  Don’t forget the MS Snowmobile Tour January 23-25, 2014.  

INSPIRE HOPE......check!

by Jackie Piper

I have to say I really loved our Sunday T-shirt for this year's Door County Challenge Walk MS. When I unfolded it in the cabin on Thursday night, I thought, “Cool, I like that message.”  And then, as the weekend progressed, I thought, no, this isn't just a cool T-shirt. This is the perfect message to express what Challenge Walk is all about. The dictionary defines hope as “a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen.” Here is how I define hope, brought to you by Challenge Walk 2013:

I HOPE YOU CHEER FOR ME:  What an amazing job the volunteers who man the rest stops do. On Saturday, at a particularly painful point in the walk, a chocolate candy necklace and row of silly cheerleaders made all the difference.

Jackie at the 49-mile marker on
Day 3 of Challenge Walk MS 2013

I HOPE I HAVE FUN:  What's more fun than an entire team in orange evening gowns and menswear? I really can't explain how much fun we all have doing this ridiculously long walk, but we all do.

I HOPE I MAKE A DIFFERENCE:  OK. Here's my theory: Someday there will be a research project funded by a grant with money from the Challenge Walk that will find a cure for MS. That money will be raised by individuals who collected money in dozens of different ways. Maybe someone's $10 donation will be the difference between a $500,000 grant and one for $499,990. That walker who made the effort to ask for that donation will have made the biggest difference in the world. It's just my theory, but every time we raise one dollar for MS, we make a difference.

I HOPE I FEEL LOVED:  The group hug on Sunday afternoon – what a visible way to show the people who are dealing with this disease every day that we care. 

I HOPE I CAN HOPE:  On Sunday at about mile 48 I encountered a couple who were walking alone together and we struck up a conversation. It turns out that she has MS and has been on the same medication as my son-in-law since 2001 without a relapse in all that time. Wow! I felt at that moment, “So this is why I came”...to listen to a story that inspires hope for Dylan who was diagnosed just four years ago.  

And so we take a little breather now before we roll up our shirt sleeves and get to work on the business of fighting MS at Challenge Walk 2014. 

I HOPE I see you all there.