(Editors' Note: The following report on our first-ever walk-a-thon is reprinted from the Fall, 1982 issue of the Minnesota Bulletin.)

Walk-a-thon A Success

Early Saturday morning, September 11, Calhoun Beach at Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis marked the starting point for a significant event in the lives of Minnesota’s organized blind—the first-ever walk-a-thon fundraiser sponsored by National Federation of the Blind of Minnesota.

More than 61 walkers turned out to complete the 20-kilometer course, which circled Lake Calhoun, Lake of the Isles and Lake Harriet. Pledges subscribed by the walkers for each kilometer covered totaled $4,500, with one walker alone accounting for $1,200 in pledges. These funds will be used to support the Federation’s ongoing networking, advocacy and public education programs, including publication of The Blindside.

Walk-a-thon chairperson Janiece Betker pronounced this year’s event a success and predicted more walkers and more pledges for the 1983 event.

The Federation wishes to thank KSTP radio personality Dick Pomerantz, who served as honorary walk-a-thon chairperson. Thanks are also due to the Team Electronics store at 26th and Hennepin, which provided an outdoor public address system; Burger King, which contributed Whopper coupons for all walkers; and a major Twin Cities bottling company that provided soft drinks for the walkers.

And, of course, the Federation wants to thank all of the people who came out to meet us, walk with us and see how “we are changing what it means to be blind".

(Editors' Afterword: As this issue of the Bulletin goes to publication, we are preparing for our 41st Annual Walk for Opportunity, a ten-kilometer fund-raising walk around Lake of the Isles and Lake Bde Maka Ska, and in other locations around the state. Over the 41 years, our routes have taken us near and far. As you have just read, this year's route is part of the one we used at the very beginning (although with a new name for one of the lakes). After the first one, we did a few more 20K routes, including near Minnehaha Falls; next, we moved it to Rochester, then back to the Twin Cities, then through historic New Ulm, then to Minneapolis along the Mississippi river, then to Rochester again on the Zumbrota River—and then, for the past two years, in smaller groups in cities like Mankato, St. Paul, Rochester, Stillwater, and so on.

Steve Jacobson is the only person to have walked in all of the walks. Judy Sanders has also been involved with them all, sometimes walking and sometimes in a supporting role. This year, we look forward to walking with everyone, whether this is their first time on the walk or they have racked up many miles before.

The event was first called a Walk-a-thon, then changed to "Move-a-Thon" to acknowledge participants on wheels, and now it is called the Walk for Opportunity to bring out the reason we do it—to improve opportunity for blind people in Minnesota and everywhere.)