“The whole purpose of this event is to just build education, advocacy and awareness for our infertility community.”
By Krista Cerminaro
Walk of Hope, a national fundraising event through the national infertility association RESOLVE, will host its first-ever local walk at Washington Lake Park on April 15.
The walk — which takes place right before National Infertility Week — is an opportunity for those who are a part of the infertility community to come together and support each other, according to executive committee member Lynn Polin.
“Locally, there has actually not been any walks in our area — we are the first walk ever in our area. The closest one to us was up in North Jersey, and they since have moved it over to New York,” Polin said.
According to Polin, RESOLVE hosts two types of walks — signature and DIY. The difference, Polin said, is while signature walks are run by RESOLVE, the DIY walks are planned completely on your own.
“We have gotten our own sponsors, we put together our own programs, we’ve done our own signage, we have done our own advertising,” Polin said.
Polin is part of the executive committee that helped plan the DIY walk in Sewell, which has raised more money than any other walk so far this year.
“To date, we have $26,244 raised. Not only is that the most that any DIY walk has ever raised for RESOLVE, [but] right now if you look at all the totals for all of the walks — DIY and signature — we have the biggest gross total by far for all of their walks in the year. It’s been awesome,” Polin said. “We’re not kidding when we say we blew this out of the water. We’re pretty proud.”
According to Polin, one in eight people are affected by infertility.
“People aren’t educated — they don’t talk about it, they feel ashamed by it, and so the whole purpose of this event is to just build education, advocacy and awareness for our infertility community,” she said.
Polin said 149 walkers and 27 runners had signed up as of March 26.
“Our goal is 200 walkers, but I think we’re going to exceed that,” Polin said.
Executive committee member Nancy Beard explained the event will feature a moon bounce, balloon artist, tailgating games and a DJ.
“It’s a kid-friendly event. Kids are encouraged to attend,” Beard said.
“There’s going to be a couple of health and wellness tables set up, we’re going to have a raffle for some health and wellness visits to certain clinics, there’s going to be an acupuncturist there, there’s going to be some infertility clinics,” Polin added. “And, this is the coolest thing in my opinion — we’re going to have something called ‘Journey Beads.’”
Polin explained participants are encouraged to wear different colored beaded necklaces that represent their individual situation.
“For example, an orange necklace would be that you’re a support person for somebody in infertility. A gold necklace would mean that you’ve experienced a loss of some kind. And so, all of these different colors are going to stand for something that has to do with the infertility journey,” Polin said. “It’s two-fold. It’s to share your journey without having to say anything, and it’s also to look around and see how many people are actually affected by this.”
Polin also said men are encouraged to wear the beads as well.
“So many people do not talk about this, so I have a feeling that some people are going to come and put on beads and people are going to look and be like, ‘wow, I didn’t know that she lost a pregnancy,’ [or] ‘Oh wow, I didn’t know that she was considering adoption,’” Polin said. “[or] ‘I didn’t know that their child had come from an infertility journey.’”
“So many couples go through this,” Beard added. “We just want to raise awareness and reduce that stigma and shame around infertility.”
According to Polin, there’s not much support for those who have experienced infertility.
“I have been in the infertility world for about five years. After my ninth round of IVF, I kind of called it quits for a bit, and then decided over the summer that I really just wanted to give back and support people that are going through it — because, unfortunately, there’s just not lot a lot of support out there for people traveling through the infertility journey,” Polin said.
This inspired Polin to reach out to RESOLVE and start a local peer-led support group for people who have experienced infertility. The group meets the first Wednesday of the month at 7 p.m., at Virtua in Voorhees.
Polin said most of the group members also serve on the committee that helped organize the walk, alongside her husband, close friends and coworkers.
“Most of the people on the committee have either experienced infertility themselves firsthand, or they know somebody that has gone through it,” Polin said.
Polin noted the walk is accepting registrants until April 14, and funds raised will benefit RESOLVE, to help with educational programming and building awareness and advocacy.
To register or donate, visit www.bit.ly/WalkofHope-Sewell.
