The Bay Area Buddy Walk

Our family attended the Bay Area Buddy Walk put on by the Silicon Valley Down Syndrome Network at Lake Cunningham in San Jose.  The Buddy Walk is an event that takes place all over the country put on by local groups that helps raise awareness for Down Syndrome.  It was a very well attended event.  There were 1300 people pre-registered to attend and I'd say that there were probably that many there.  This year, I decided that we would not form a team and ask for donations.  So many people donated to the SVDSN or Lucile Packard when Julia died and then so many others contributed to the Julia bench at Mt. Hermon.  I could not bring myself to ask for more money from people.  So I decided we would join another team and contribue money ourselves.  We joined "Penny's Posse" this year.  Diana Otwell is a very active member of the SVDSN and she has kept in touch after Julia died.  She was trying to raise enough so that her daughter, Penny, would win an iPad.  I'm not sure if she did, but at least we were able to bring her a little closer to her goal.  All the money raised goes directly to the SVDSN.  I'm trying to remember how old Penny is... I'm thinking around 5 or 6.  Here is a photo of "Penny's Posse."

The way it works is that they have lots of tables set up, jumpy houses, a DJ who also led some exercises, popcorn, snowcones, pizza, drinks, face painting, and other things for the kids and families to do.  Everything is free!  And then at 11:00, they do the "walk".  It's about a quarter mile around a big field next to the lake.  Teams gather and it's like a big parade.  There are signs posted around the walk to cheer on the various teams.  There are also signs that tell facts about Down syndrome and raise awareness.  Teams range in size from 3 to 30!  There was a sign to honor Julia this year that the SVDSN did for us.  It was very kind of them.

Here are a couple pictures of Bob and Mattie on the "walk."

It was harder on me emotionally to be there than I had expected.  It made me miss Julia.  But I am so glad we went.  I got so see several women that I had connected with in the SVDSN that I hadn't seen in a while: Diana, Marcy, Jenny, Ellen, and even Julia's former pediatrician, Dr. Jane Chen.  It was also nice to see some of the names I recognized from reading various posts on the SVDSN yahoo group.  (I still am subscribed to the the SVDSN yahoo group and I read many of the posts.)  It was just nice to be a part of it all.