Organizers hope to make a financial leap this year at the third annual Walk to Cure Juvenile Diabetes at Thompson Park.
They have set a goal to raise $10,000 at the Sept. 12 event. The first two walks raised nearly $7,000 each.
Besides the financial goal, there's another objective.
"We want to raise attention to the seriousness of the disease and to raise funds to find a cure," said Judith N. George, co-founder of the North Country Support Group for Juvenile Diabetes, an affiliate of the Central New York Chapter of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.
This year's walk is in the memory of Dona-Rae Yaussi, who died last year of ovarian cancer. Mrs. Yaussi and Mrs. George co-founded the local juvenile diabetes support group in 2007.
"We began it because we were both anxious to find a cure," Mrs. George said.
Type 1 diabetes is the less common form of the disease, accounting for 5 percent to 10 percent of cases. It's often referred to as juvenile diabetes because the diagnosis often occurs in childhood and adolescence, although it can strike young adults as well.
The condition is considered an autoimmune disease because the body's immune system attacks and destroys the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas, according to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.
Those with Type 1 diabetes must have insulin injections daily or continually infuse insulin through a pump and test their blood sugar by pricking their fingers several times a day.
"It's one of the things we take for granted, but without insulin, it affects so much," Mrs. George said.
She said the majority of the money raised at the walk will go toward research, with only about 7 percent going to administrative costs. She noted there has been promising juvenile diabetes research the past few years, including work on an artificial pancreas.
In April, the Los Angeles Times reported that researchers made a major step toward the development of an artificial pancreas that overcomes the problem resulting from most previous attempts — dangerously low blood sugar caused by injection of too much insulin. The artificial device, which would revolutionize diabetes care and management, would be an automated system to dispense insulin based on real-time changes in blood sugar levels.
Researchers hope the Food and Drug Administration will approve the artificial pancreas in as little as seven years.
