The annual JDRF One Walk, to raise funds for research both for a cure and to improve the lives of those with type 1 diabetes, will be a little different this year.
Instead of gathering in a large group and walking, this year because of COVID-19 restrictions there will be a Triad Fall Walk Drive-In Celebration in the parking lot of the Greensboro Coliseum at 11 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 31.
The audio for the event will be via car radios, which is different, but as usual the onstage program will recognize people recently diagnosed with type 1 diabetes (T1D) and celebrate individuals, family teams and corporate teams that raised the most funds.
There will also be presentations on the latest T1D research advances that have come with funding from the JDRF One Walk fundraising efforts as well as musical performances and messages from JDRF sponsors.
The event will be emceed by the Fox8 news team.
In the press release, JDRF Piedmont Triad Market Director Eleanor Schaffner-Mosh said, “We’re delighted that we have the opportunity to gather with our Triad T1D family in a safe, socially distanced way on Halloween morning. When we learned about the Greensboro Coliseum’s ability to host drive-in movies, we realized that this would be a great way to celebrate in-person with our walkers, teams and sponsors. I expect to see hundreds of decorated cars, with drivers honking their horns and passengers in their personalized Walk Day T-shirts cheering from their parking spaces.”
On Sunday, Nov. 1, JDRF will for the first time hold National One Walk Day challenging supporters across the country to come together as one nationwide community to walk. The goal of National One Walk Day is to walk 1.6 million miles, in honor of the estimated 1.6 million Americans living with T1D and raise $50 million to commemorate JDRF’s 50 years of progress toward creating a world without T1D.
Because of restrictions on large gatherings due to the pandemic, no JDRF walks are being held in the normal fashion. However, the need for fundraising to support research to cure, prevent and treat T1D is as urgent as ever. T1D never stops, even in the midst of a global pandemic.
