More than 500 people joined the Walk to End Alzheimer’s in Corpus Christi, sharing stories of loss, strength, and hope fueled by new state funding.

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — More than 500 people participated in the annual Walk to End Alzheimer’s in Downtown Corpus Christi not just for awareness but for hope. 

Texas voters approved Proposition 14, paving the way for new state funding. $1.5 billion will be dedicated to research on Alzheimer’s, Dementia, and Parkinson’s disease – a huge step toward finding a cure. 

For Alzheimer’s Association South Texas Chapter board member Kathleen Clark, it’s personal. Her grandmother died from the disease when she was in high school. Now she volunteers for the organization but this year’s walk feels different.

“I’m honoring all the strong women in my family and all the strong women who are caregivers and who are helping their loved ones through this process and the the women who are working through the process themselves as a patient, we all support each other. I do it for them,” Clark said.

For many, that message hits close to home. Especially for volunteer Sandra Gamez-Gonzalez. 

“My father passed away from Alzheimer’s. He passed away in 2010, so we helped care for him and he suffered through through the disease,” Gamez-Gonzalez said.

For veteran Steve Griffith, the walk is a symbol of strength as he is living with Alzheimer’s and facing it one day at a time.

“It’s not where you’ve lost everything, you’re just losing your memory, and it seems to be slow, it’s like me forgetting names,” Griffith said. “Occasionally I forget, you know, where am I? I could just stand here and go – look around. But that’s it. It’s just a gradual loss of your memory. It’s terrible.”

And for families like Tammy Wyatt and her son Sage Hawkins, who’ve lost three loved ones to Alzheimer’s. The new law brings a light at the end of a long road.

“We’d like to see a cure or at least something that’ll slow it down. And our family has a big chance of the gene being as we’ve had so many people die and I just wanna see people not lose themselves,” Wyatt said.

And that hope is spreading. Participant Khristine Martinez is holding on to it. One step, one story, one stride closer to a cure.

“In my lifetime, I really do believe that we can find a cure for Alzheimer’s,” Martinez said.

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