Lois, who has the disease, addressed over 46 teams and 350 people gathered with her husband, John Sauder.
“I do my best to be normal when I am around others, but often it just wears me out,” Lois said to the crowd.
She said she worries about the future.
“How long can I remember my children and grandchildren?” she said. “Our hope lies in the cure.”
More than 5 million Americans live with Alzheimer’s and the number is growing, according to the Alzheimer’s Association.
Participants held flower pinwheels: blue for those with the disease, yellow for caregivers, orange for participants supporting the cause and purple for relatives of those who have died.
“Whatever flower you are holding, you are not alone in facing Alzheimer’s,” announcer Joe Warren said.
Tanisha Howard held two pinwheels, one purple for her grandfather and one yellow for her grandmother. She said the walk has introduced her to a support system she didn’t know she had.
“It helps to know that you are not going through it by yourself,” Howard’s sorority sister Christina Pitts said. Pitts’ grandfather also died of Alzheimer’s.
Like others, Howard and Pitts wore purple shirts reading, “The end of Alzheimer’s starts with me.”
Registration for the walk was free, but participants who raised $100 got shirts.
Before Sunday, the walk had raised about $58,000, according to Alzheimer’s Association Development Specialist Lauren Lay. That was more than the walk had brought in the previous year, but they had not yet reached their goal of $71 thousand, Lay said.
“By participating in Walk to End Alzheimer’s, Hoosier communities raise funds to provide care and support services to the more than 110,000 Indiana residents living with Alzheimer’s and 332,000 caregivers,” Heather Hershberger, the Alzheimer’s Association of Greater Indiana Chapter executive director, said in a press release.
“The support also contributes to advancing research that could help find a treatment for Alzheimer’s disease,” Hershberger said.
Queen’s “We are the Champions” and Aerosmith’s “Walk this Way” played as participants began their one- and three-mile routes around the park.
Walking by a tennis court, Briana Osmon told her mother, “I think grandma would be proud of us.”
