We had such a great time at the walk, everything ran smoothly and we started the walk right at 9a.m. I don't know the exact number, but the Fort Myers Walk raised over $15,000.00 between all the teams!!!! Mary Calvert from the CFF in Tampa started off our walk with an inspiring talk about some new drug developments for CF. The main one being VX-770. Right now VX-770 will help about 5-20% of the CF population, but we were told that this is a starting block for the development of similar treatments that will help many more. This drug is the closest yet to a cure (for those with a specific gene mutation), so they are looking forward to the next decade of development and we are hoping they are right and maybe a cure will be found in that time. The research for these treatments are primarily funded by the CFF and that is what the GREAT STRIDES walk is all about!!!
We are so glad the walk went so well, and Lakes Regional Park was such a beautiful and fun place to have it!!! We had been to the park once before when Kaitlyn was hospitalized right after her CF diagnosis, but we had only seen a very tiny part of it where they have an old train and a huge playground. Where our walk started there was another playground, and we spent some time after we signed in to let the kids play a bit before the walk.
Gabby of course loved the swings, and Kaitlyn and Josh loved the rock climbing wall and some of the other things as well. At 9 a.m. we walked, we kind of lagged behind taking a couple pics along the way...
Mary had said in the beginning if we were feeling "ambitious" we could walk the trail twice.... so we started to.... but about half way through we heard them making announcements and headed back....
And it was a beautiful park, and we really enjoyed the walk.... After the walk was done we had pizza and water donated from GREAT STRIDES sponsors Dominoes and B103.9, then we headed over to the wet playgrounds where Kaitlyn had a lot of fun. At first Gabby didn't want much to do with it though...
After she had her fun in the water, she got changed and headed out on another walk with her dad and brother. I tried taking Gabby back in the wet park so she could play with the water a little, and she was much more receptive... unfortunately the battery on my camera died, so no pics of her kicking and grabbing the water, but she had fun getting just a little wet.... Anyways, while Kaitlyn, Josh and Steve went on their longest walk yet, the rest of us girls stayed behind and let Gabby take a much needed nap. We headed home exhausted (especially Kaitlyn), but thrilled that the walk was so successful and fun!!!
We had a really small team as this was our first walk, but our small team made a big difference! Over $1300.00 raised with more to come!!! Thank you Mandy, Mom, and Katie for joining Josh, Steve, Gabby, Kaitlyn and me at our first ever Great Strides walk! Also a big Thank you to Stephanie who wanted to be there, but even though she couldn't be made a huge impact on our fundraising efforts! Also a big Thank you to everyone who donated and who are still donating to such a great cause! Next year we hope to add walkers to our team, and raise our goals even higher!!! THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU to ALL of Kaitlyn's Crusaders!!!!!
WE THANK YOU ALL FROM THE BOTTOM OF OUR HEARTS - THE STRANSKY FAMILY
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