3-Day, 50-Mile Walk for Multiple Sclerosis Fundraiser to Kick Off in Carlsbad

The National Multiple Sclerosis Society’s Pacific South Coast Chapter in San Diego has announced that more than 250 people are expected to participate at the 11th annual Southern California Challenge Walk MS, a three-day, 50-mile fundraising walk along the coastline starting at Carlsbad’s Flower Fields and ending in Downtown San Diego, Sept. 21 to 23. Registration is still open. Event information is available at www.myMSchallenge.com, or phone Jennifer West, special events director, at (760) 448-8435.

The fundraiser, which has drawn as many as about 325 walkers in previous years, has a goal this year of raising $1 million for MS research and programs and services for Southern Californians living with MS, a chronic, unpredictable and disabling disease of the central nervous system with no known cause, cure or prevention. Last year’s Challenge Walk in 2011 featured 215 people, including 54 people who have MS, who helped raise about $969,000 in donations.

The minimum donation required to walk in the 2012 Challenge Walk MS is $2,500 per person, which includes overnight hotel accommodations, meals and entertainment. Walkers between ages 12 and 16 have a fundraising minimum of $1,500.

The Day #1, 20-mile walk will begin at the Flower Fields in Carlsbad and end at the Marriott Hotel in Del Mar. The Day #2, 20-mile walk will begin at the hotel and end at Ventura Cove in Mission Bay, where buses will shuttle walkers back to the hotel for a dinner and entertainment. The Day #3, 10-mile walk will begin at Ventura Cove and end around noontime at Embarcadero Marina Park South, located behind the San Diego Convention Center in Downtown San Diego.

Since the event’s inception in 2002, when 179 local walkers raised $496,000, the Pacific South Coast Chapter’s Challenge Walk has raised more than $9.5 million, which is among the highest dollar amounts of any of the nine other Challenge Walk MS events organized by the 50-state network for MS Society chapters in the U.S. The Southern California Challenge Walk MS, which is organized by both the San Diego-based Pacific South Coast Chapter and the Los Angeles-based Southern California/Nevada Chapter, is the only Challenge Walk west of the Mississippi River.

MS is the most common neurological disease leading to disability in young‑ to middle‑aged adults. Most people are diagnosed between the ages of 20 and 50, and more than twice as many women as men have MS. Symptoms cannot be predicted and can vary greatly, ranging from numbness in the limbs and extreme fatigue to loss of balance and muscle coordination or paralysis.