The National Multiple Sclerosis Society’s Pacific South Coast Chapter in San Diego has confirmed that more than 250 people are registered to walk 50 miles in three days at the 11th annual Southern California Challenge Walk MS. The walk along the coastline will start this Friday morning, Sept. 23, at Carlsbad’s Flower Fields and end around noontime on Sunday, Sept. 23 in Downtown San Diego.
The fundraiser has a goal this year of raising $1 million for MS research and programs and services for Southern Californians living with MS, a chronic, unpredictable and disabling disease of the central nervous system with no known cause, cure or prevention. Last year’s Challenge Walk in 2011 featured 215 people, including 54 people who have MS, who helped raise about $969,000 in donations.
The minimum donation required to walk in the 2012 Challenge Walk MS is $2,500 per person, which includes overnight hotel accommodations, meals and entertainment. Walkers between ages 12 and 16 have a fundraising minimum of $1,500. Registration is still open. Event information is available at www.myMSchallenge.com, or phone Jennifer West, special events director, at (760) 448-8435.
The Day #1, 20-mile walk will begin at the Flower Fields and end at the Marriott Hotel in Del Mar. The Day #2, 20-mile walk will begin at the hotel and end at Ventura Cove in Mission Bay, where buses will shuttle walkers back to the hotel for a dinner and entertainment. The Day #3, 10-mile walk will begin at Ventura Cove and end around noontime at Embarcadero Marina Park South, located behind the San Diego Convention Center in Downtown San Diego.
Since the event’s inception in 2002, when 179 local walkers raised $496,000, the Pacific South Coast Chapter’s Challenge Walk has raised more than $9.5 million, which is among the highest dollar amounts of any of the nine other Challenge Walk MS events organized by the 50-state network for MS Society chapters in the U.S. The Southern California Challenge Walk MS, which is organized by both the San Diego-based Pacific South Coast Chapter and the Los Angeles-based Southern California/Nevada Chapter, is the only Challenge Walk west of the Mississippi River.
