Walk in the park

Sunday's paper seemed stuffed with ads for events this month in the Albany area for active people who want to fight diseases and other maladies.

There is a "Tour de Habitat'' at the end of the month, which consists of riding a bicycle 10, 25, 50 or 100 miles to raise money to build homes for the needy; the Race for Hope, a 5k walk-run through Slingerlands (right near where we live) to help those with brain, head and neck cancers; an AIDS walk at the end of the month; and a walk to cure diabetes on the 20th.

Worthy causes, all. But I have to admit my attention is focused on the walk next Sunday in our town, Delmar, to help fight pancreatic cancer.

The walk, of .6, 1.2 or 2.4 mile,s is through the Bethlehem Town Park on Elm Avenue. Registration, which is $50, starts at 9:30 a.m. and the actual walk gets underway at 10:15.

It's one of many such walks around the country organized by the Lustgarten Foundation, which is named after Marc Lustgarten, a Long Island man and Cablevision executive who died of the disease in 1999. According to its website, the foundation has raised $6.5 million for research since it was founded a decade ago.

More information is available at http://www.lustgarten.org/jaygallagheralbany

It will be my first sort of cancer-support event, and I'm eager to get a feel for what is being done to increase awareness and research funding to fight the disease.