PADUCAH, KY (6/9/12) – On Saturday, June 10, 2012, nearly 800 people showed up at Noble Park for the fourth annual JDRF Walk. JRDF refers to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

The event was a one-mile walk around the lake at Noble Park. After the walk, participants were rewarded with ice cream from Cold Stone. This is the fourth year that the walk has been held. “The goal of the event is to find a cure and to raise awareness for JDRF. But, mainly to find a cure,” said Executive Director, Meredith Gault.

JDRF organizers and participants are happy that the weather finally cooperated this year. Gault said, “Mother nature damped us the last two years. Mother nature gave us the perfect day this year.”

Organizers of the event set a goal to raise $100,000. Preliminary totals were at about $85,000. “This will probably be a close to record year. Yesterday, we were already beating last year’s totals,” said Gault.

The event has come a long way since it started four years ago. Tom and Ashley Shadoan started the event four years ago for their son, Parker Shadoan, who has Type 1 Diabetes.

Type 1 Diabetes occurs when the body does not produce insulin. You usually find Type 1 diabetes in children or young adults but grown adults can be diagnosed with it too. Insulin is what we use to convert sugar, starches, and other food into energy needed for our daily life activities. Only five percent of people usually have this type of diabetes.  

Tom Shadoan wants people to know that diabetes affects more than just one person.“This affect more than just the child who has diabetes. It affects other family members and even my two daughters as well,” said Shadoan. “It’s great that we can get a large group of people together for such a great cause. You know, we started with only eight teams in our first year and this year we have 29 teams.”
Shadoan hopes that the event will continue to grow so a cure can be found.

Several of the 29 teams were school groups. Hickman County Elementary School raised the most out of these schools by bringing in $1,561.

Today nearly three million people in the United States have Type One Diabetes.  According to the JDRF website, 80 people per day get diagnosed with JDRF. You can go to http://www2.jdrf.org/site/TR?fr_id=1660&;pg=entry if you want to donate towards the JDRF walk.

Conor Revell
SurfKy News

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