The Parkinson’s Foundation will host its third annual Moving Day North LA, A Walk for Parkinson’s, in Valencia Heritage Park on April 28 from 9:30 a.m. to noon.
Approximately 300-350 attendees are expected, including people with Parkinson’s, their families, volunteers, health professionals and local businesses.
Funds raised through Moving Day will support research and community programs to improve the lives of people with Parkinson’s disease and their families.
The event will feature a kids’ area, a caregivers’ relaxation area and a special Movement Pavilion with yoga, dance, non-impact boxing and other activities that help manage Parkinson’s symptoms.
City Councilman Cameron Smyth will be a first time attendee this year. Smyth’s father died from complications from the disease in 2012, leading him to take interest in the event.
The councilman said he was happy to be a part of the program and share how Parkinson’s disease impacted his family.
“The beauty of this community is when people want to get involved and give back, there’s no shortage of volunteers who want to give their time and money to support a cause,” Smyth said. “This cause impacts me and my family personally and certainly carries a special value for me.”
Teachers of the Alexander Technique, an educational process that helps performs retrain habitual patterns of movement and posture, will also be at the event. Previously, the Poise Project, a nonprofit that specializes in poise in human functioning, held a workshop on April 27 at Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital to help people living with Parkinson’s disease and their caretakers retain movement functionality
Since 2011, Moving Day events across the country have raised more than $17 million to improve care and advance research toward a cure.
Parkinson’s disease is the second-most common neurodegenerative disease after Alzheimer’s and is the 14th-leading cause of death in the United States. Affecting an estimated one million Americans and 10 million worldwide, it is associated with a progressive loss of motor control (e.g., shaking or tremor at rest and lack of facial expression), as well as non-motor symptoms (e.g., depression and anxiety). Around 60,000 new cases are diagnosed each year in the United States alone.
The Parkinson’s Foundation is a fund for improving care and advancing research toward a cure for the disease. For more information, visit www.parkinson.org.
To RSVP, contact Sarah Osborne at 661-360-5544 or [email protected].
Valencia Heritage Park is located at 24155 Newhall Ranch Road.
