{"id":406891,"date":"2026-09-22T04:54:53","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T04:54:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/406891\/"},"modified":"2026-09-22T04:54:53","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T04:54:53","slug":"tampa-bay-28-anchors-wendy-ryan-and-paul-lagrone-emcee-vitiligo-awareness-walk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/406891\/","title":{"rendered":"Tampa Bay 28 anchors Wendy Ryan and Paul LaGrone emcee Vitiligo Awareness Walk"},"content":{"rendered":"

TAMPA, Fla. (WFTS) \u2014 The fifth annual Vitiligo Awareness Walk took place at Al Lopez Park in Tampa on Saturday.<\/p>\n

The event brings together patients, families and advocates to raise awareness and provide support for those living with vitiligo.<\/p>\n

WATCH: Tampa Bay 28 anchors Wendy Ryan and Paul LaGrone emcee Vitiligo Awareness Walk<\/p>\n

Tampa Bay 28 anchors Wendy Ryan and Paul LaGrone emcee Vitiligo Awareness Walk<\/p>\n

Tampa Bay 28 anchor Wendy Ryan and Paul LaGrone helped emcee the event, which is organized by the Beautifully Unblemished Support Group.<\/p>\n

It’s a nonprofit for individuals living with vitiligo, and helps support their mental well-being, after being diagnosed with the auto-immune disease. The walk also raises money for Beautifully Unblemished to continue raising awareness and support those living with the disease. Vitiligo is a chronic skin condition characterized by the loss of pigment.<\/p>\n

Those at the event say taking part in something like this brings the community together and makes the experience personal for everyone, even if they don\u2019t have a personal connection to vitiligo.<\/p>\n

\u201cIncyte Dermatology is a pharmaceutical company. When we go into a space, we go, like, deep in. So, we are very committed to the Vitiligo Community,” Erica Cech, Incyte’s communications and patient advocacy lead, explained to Tampa Bay 28’s Ryan.<\/p>\n

“When you meet somebody like Tonja, who runs Beautifully Unblemished, it’s impossible not to get completely swept up by her. So we’re here to support, lift-up patient voices and really just support everything that she’s doing.”<\/p>\n

\"paul<\/p>\n

WFTS<\/p>\n

Tampa Bay 28 anchors Wendy Ryan and Paul LaGrone emcee the Vitiligo Awareness Walk.<\/p>\n

Mayor Jane Castor was at the walk and welcomed the crowd. And her partner, Ana Cruz, spoke about being diagnosed with vitiligo and the challenges she faced for many years. <\/p>\n

She also talked about how important it is to stop the stigma around the disease. <\/p>\n

The event introduced its first canine ambassador. The black lab, named “Sunday” was diagnosed with vitiligo in March and has already lost most of his black color. <\/p>\n

You can learn more about Beautifully Unblemished by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. (WFTS) \u2014 The fifth annual Vitiligo Awareness Walk took place at Al Lopez Park in Tampa…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":406892,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[161644,28,571,634,266,115,135,5910,137,136,161645,208],"class_list":["post-406891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-anchors","tag-florida","tag-health","tag-local","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-bay-28","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-vitiligo-awareness-walk","tag-wfts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=406891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/406892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}