If you’re looking to spend a Saturday morning taking a stroll around Concord, you might as well do it for a good cause! The 15th Annual Walk for Sight is on June 2, and it benefits New Hampshire’s visually impaired and blind people through the nonprofit Future in Sight.
At 11 a.m., all of the participants who have made a $20 donation to the cause will do a non-competitive 3K walk around the city. Afterwards, there will be music, seeing-eye puppies to pet, and a raffle for $6,000 worth of goods and services.
“The walk for this year is going to be a record number of participants,” said Lucinda Williams, Future in Sight’s director of development. “The walk just continues to grow in size and in scope of folks coming, which is wonderful.”
Participants also have the option to start a team to raise money for Future in Sight– all 17 of the event sponsor Shaw’s stores will be sending a team to walk on Saturday. Last year, the most amount of money a team contributed was $10,000 of the walk’s $100,000 goal.
They reached their goal last year, and this year they hope to raise $125,000 to fund Future in Sight’s programs and services. That’s a huge improvement since the beginning of the fundraiser 15 years ago, when they raised $10,000 in total.
Future in Sight provides their 4,000 clients – a number that has nearly doubled over the past year – with peer-to-peer support groups, technology support groups, mobility specialists and more.
This year is the event’s largest, with more than 300 participants signed up as of earlier this month. By signing up, participants will receive a free T-shirt, a buffet lunch from Tandy’s Pub, and a chance to win prizes from the raffle – including an American Girl doll with her own white cane and seeing-eye dog.
Congresswoman Annie Kuster will also be participating in the walk this year as a Walk in My Shoes participant. She will wear a blindfold for the walk in order to experience what visual impairment is like.
Williams hopes that you will join the Walk for Sight to help support the 30,000 vision-impaired and blind people in New Hampshire.
“We all walk together in a big group for advocacy and support,” Williams said. “Just to acknowledge that Future in Sight is going to be there to help those 30,000 people. They are not alone.”
For anyone interested in participating, walker check-in is at 9 a.m. at the Future in Sight office at 25 Walker St. in Concord. The registration fee is $20 for adults and $5 for kids. You can learn more information and sign up at futureinsight.org.
