An Update on the Walk to Conquer Pain

Written by Samantha Barrett for the RSDSA blog.

The Walk to Conquer Pain kicked off this past Saturday. It grew even more over the weekend. I love seeing how much this walk grows every day.

I wanted to just clarify a few things for everyone. Since this is a new website and event, I am learning as we go as well. To sign up for the walk you can go to: https://walk-to-conquer-pain.everydayhero.com/us/get-started. This will create your fundraising page that you can share online through email or social media. All you have to do is copy the web address at the top of the page. It is similar to a FirstGiving page. If you would like a template of an email/post to send to your friends and family about the walk and fundraising, we can provide you with one.

You do not need to download the MapMyFitness app to your phone as we initially anticipated. It is more of a promotional item than it is a necessity. The app just helps show that you walked a certain distance or for a certain amount of time and then allows you to post it to your social media pages as well as your fundraising page as a way to show that you’re actually walking.

We have been using Periscope to show different people walking. Periscope is a smartphone application that allows you to show what you are doing in real time. For example, on Saturday, I broadcasted from a beach in Plymouth, Massachusetts. I walked the beach, told a bit of my story, and gave some information on how people could participate in the walk. I had 110 viewers, and quite a few were international. I had viewers from Russia, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, and more! We have a few members of the community signed up to broadcast their walks over the next couple of weeks, which will help get the word out. A member of our board of directors, Bob Lane, also did a test run of Periscope on Saturday from Denver that we were able to link people to. It is a great tool to show how we are participating and to show that this is a real event. It gives our community a face to go along with the names that they so frequently see. It is a wonderful way to unite the community that cannot always be together as well!

We still have 11 days left of the Walk to Conquer Pain. We have walkers from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, South Korea, and Lebanon. We want to cover the map with orange Conquer Pain participants! I would like to encourage everyone to consider signing up for the walk and even trying to participate in a Periscope broadcast. I would be happy to help anyone that would like to figure Periscope out. I can help promote that you will be broadcasting through our social media as well. Just send me an email at SBarrett@rsds.insctest1.com and I can help get you a time. This technology is new to all of us. If you aren’t comfortable with trying to Periscope, I would like to encourage you to take a picture with our Conquer Pain sign. The sign has a blank space where you can write in the name of the person (or people) that you are walking for during the Walk to Conquer Pain. If you take a picture of yourself with the sign, you can send it to me and I can upload it to our social media. The sign will be put up on our Facebook page soon. It is also available here: I’m Going to ConquerPain For…

If you want to follow the people we already have scheduled to Periscope, here are the accounts:

Sammie Barrett- SammieBrsd

Bob Lane- Bdenver

RSDiva- theRSDiva
Thank you all. Happy November! Let us all continue to #ConquerPain together!