{"id":721533,"date":"2026-04-11T23:52:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T23:52:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/721533\/"},"modified":"2026-04-11T23:52:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T23:52:14","slug":"walk-ms-draws-nearly-1000-people-to-friendship-fountain-to-raise-awareness-support","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/721533\/","title":{"rendered":"Walk MS draws nearly 1,000 people to Friendship Fountain to raise awareness, support"},"content":{"rendered":"

JACKSONVILLE, Fla.<\/strong> \u2013 Nearly 1,000 people came out to Friendship Fountain Saturday morning for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society<\/a>\u2019s annual Walk MS<\/a>, an event aimed at raising money for research, expanding access to treatment and showing support for families living with the chronic neurological disease.<\/p>\n

The organization says nearly one million people in the United States have been diagnosed with the disease, including thousands in Florida.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of events like Walk MS, the MS Society has been able to fund all of the available treatments that are on the market for MS,\u201d said Amy Loeber, the society\u2019s coordinator of Fundraising, Community and Endurance events for the Florida\/Southeast region.<\/p>\n

Walkers picked up T-shirts and colored signs marking their connection to the mission: orange for those personally living with MS, yellow for supporters and green for people who have a loved one with MS.<\/p>\n

For some, the walk was a chance to remember loved ones.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am walking today for my son,\u201d said Diedre Gullett. \u201cHe passed away in 2020.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lora Smith, Mack Smith and Angela McRae walked for a family member who also passed away at a young age from the disease.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of times we just don\u2019t know how to navigate the system to find those resources that family needs,\u201d Smith said. \u201cAnd I\u2019m just super excited to see the level of support for the families that are dealing with MS.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beyond fundraising, the event also focused on connecting families with resources, organizers said. Vendors and tents lined the area, and attendees recorded moments on their phones as the crowd gathered before the walk began.<\/p>\n

Pediatric neurologist Loren McLendon from Nemours Children\u2019s Health said her work often begins with helping children and teens adjust to a new diagnosis.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey think that, \u2018Oh no, now something\u2019s wrong with me and I can\u2019t get better,\u2019\u201d McLendon said. \u201cAnd I\u2019m there to tell them, \u2018Yes, we have treatments to help this get better quicker and the treatments to prevent it from happening again.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Walk MS has another set of events in the sunshine state next weekend in both Orlando and Tampa.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 Nearly 1,000 people came out to Friendship Fountain Saturday morning for the National Multiple Sclerosis…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":721534,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,8314,3188,723,7310,12013,31290,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,79783],"class_list":["post-721533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-america","tag-duval-county","tag-fl","tag-florida","tag-jacksonville","tag-morning-show","tag-ms","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-walk"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116388767140557036","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=721533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/721534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=721533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=721533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=721533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}