Approximately 600 Upper Valley community members attended the Alzheimer’s Association’s annual Walk to End Alzheimer’s on Oct. 5, according to event chairperson Kathy Harvard.
This year’s event raised $184,278 — surpassing organizers’ target of $180,00, according to the fundraiser’s website. According to Harvard, participants began fundraising in late spring and will continue fundraising until the end of the year. The donations will support research and education efforts by the Alzheimer’s Association, a leading global health organization focused on Alzheimer’s Disease and dementia.
Every year, the Alzheimer’s Association hosts fundraising walks in more than 600 locations across the country to promote awareness about Alzheimer’s, Harvard said. Almost 100 more people attended the event than last year, when 500 participants raised $139,000.
The event began with featured speaker and Alzheimer’s Association advisor Leah Farley, who spoke about being diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s in order to help “people to feel like they’re not alone.”
“[The walk] is about hope,” she said. “I just love the camaraderie.”
Following Farley’s speech, the event featured its annual flower ceremony, during which participants held up different colored flowers to symbolize their experience with Alzheimer’s, Harvard said. Blue flowers represented those living with Alzheimer’s or dementia, purple those who have lost someone to the disease, orange those who support a world without Alzheimer’s and yellow those who care for someone with Alzheimer’s.
According to Farley, the ceremony is a “signature” part of all the Alzheimer’s Association’s fundraising walks.
“By the time we’re all done, everybody’s holding up a flower, and there’s just a sea of flowers in these colors, and you get it,” Harvard said. “Oh yeah, we are all in this together.”
Following the ceremony, participants walked two miles to and from Hanover High. The route went along South Park Street and passed by The Dartmouth Green.
Harvard said she became involved with the Alzheimer’s Association after her husband, Andy Harvard ’71, died from the disease in 2019. Harvard, now a member of the Board of Directors of the Massachusetts/New Hampshire chapter, has since become an advocate for education about Alzheimer’s.
“Let’s make sure the community is talking about this issue, and let’s be really visible so they do that,” she said. “It’s both an awareness raising and a fundraising issue.”
As a member of Dartmouth Generations — an organization that connects Dartmouth students with senior citizens in the Upper Valley — Troy Miyazato ’28 volunteered at the event. Miyazato said he has been involved with the Los Angeles Walk for Alzheimer’s since 2016, after his grandmother died from the disease.
“I thought it would be the perfect way to continue my support for the cause,” Miyazato said.
Other students made the event a group activity among friends. Oliver Morgan ’25 — whose grandmother had Alzheimer’s — encouraged fellow members of Chi Heorot fraternity to get involved with the Alzheimer’s Association.
“It’s a really easy way — an effective way — to get a lot of people motivated around a cause,” he said.
In addition to fundraising and participating in the walk as a team, the Chi Heorot house now displays purple lights in solidarity with the cause.
“It’s kind of nice to talk to people about my experience with my grandmother,” Morgan said. “It’s surprising how many other people have a similar experience. I think it’s good to show that a lot of people actually do care about [Alzheimer’s awareness] from many backgrounds, and that’s super important.”
Beyond current Dartmouth students, College alumni also volunteered and participated in the walk.
Samuel Silverstein ’58 — a former Alzheimer’s researcher at Columbia University and friend of Andy Harvard — said he attended the event to support Andy’s walking team. According to Harvard, the event encourages people to establish teams to bring friends, families, and supporters together.
“It’s a terrific thing to see so many people out [and] supporting,” Silverstein said.
Attendee Michael Maynard ’71 said he got involved with the Alzheimer’s Association and other initiatives involving Alzheimer’s after Andy Harvard’s diagnosis. For example, he and Kathy Harvard are leaders of a nonprofit called The 10,000 Brains Project, which aims to help create “a federated network to collect brain data and make it available to research.”
“The biggest thing we’ve heard from the scientific community is they need more data,” Maynard said. The organization works with “experts in the AI area to help harmonize and make easier access to what is very dense data.”
Maynard also said he encouraged fellow members of the Class of 1971 to attend the walk through the Class of 1971 newsletter.
“Awareness leads to action,” Maynard said.
