The Lloydminster Lions Club had Lloydminster residents moving as part of its Strides for Diabetes awareness event.
Hosted at the indoor walking track at the Servus Sports Centre on March 28, the event drew plenty of eager walkers.
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“The idea is to bring diabetes awareness because it’s starting to become more and more (prevalent) throughout both provinces,” said Tom Goertzen, chairman for Strides for Diabetes.
“We thought we’d have an awareness (event) for people to get more information and talk to a diabetes educator and an exercise therapist, to see how exercise and diabetes work hand in hand.”
The Lions offered diabetes information and testing alongside a game to encourage community participation.
“As an incentive, we have a little bit of a game,” he said, explaining the game has people doing laps around the track, drawing numbers and entering it into a draw. “We’ve got gift certifications that we’re handing out.”
When it comes to diabetes, it’s more personal for Goertzen.
“Diabetes is in my family, so I’m definitely aware of it,” he said, noting the event falls during the early springtime. “It’s an event that’s in spring and it’s good to make everyone aware.”
His hope is to get people talking about the disease.
“It’s a disease that nobody wants to talk about,” said Goertzen. “If you have it, you keep hush hush. But we need to bring awareness to it so that people are understanding that if you have diabetes, you can live with it and prevent some of the complications that happen if it goes untreated.”
He says the only way to know if you have diabetes is to get tested.
“Diabetes is almost like a silent killer,” he said. “If you have it, you don’t know because nothing hurts. The only way to check it is to go to a nurse and get your glucose checked.”
According to the Government of Canada, about 10 per cent of the Canadian population lives with diagnosed diabetes.
For the Lions, this is one of their various events throughout the year.
“Lions is a service club and we help different projects,” said Goertzen. “We’ve got a park and we also do citizens of the year.”
The Lions host other events throughout the year to fundraise for projects. It’s biggest of the year is the medieval feast, which is held in Kitscoty.
Anyone looking to get involved can do so through the club’s annual membership drive.
“We do have a membership and once a year, we’ll have a membership drive,” said Goertzen. “You can come out and our chairman can explain all the different ideas and duties we do and meetings we take care of.”
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