Yuma firm walking to bring Alzheimer’s awareness

One local Yuma financial services firm is taking steps to bring awareness to Alzheimer’s.

Edward Jones’ firms around the country are taking on the walk ahead of the National Walk to End Alzheimer’s in St. Louis.

It kicked off last Monday.

“As a firm, what we are doing is we are walking from both coasts, the west coast and the east coast and we’re taking on approximately 22 miles every day and we are going to meet in St. Louis.,” said Brian Butcher, Edward Jones financial adviser.

“As a region Yuma picked it up yesterday in Calexico. We walked it right out to about Felicity. Today we walked it out from Felicity into the middle of Arizona.”

The Yuma firm plans to walk to Dateland, where they will hand the walk off to their colleagues in Phoenix.

They are one of about 36 regions made up of about 150 teams, according to Butcher.

Edward Jones said they are walking because it effects several of their clients, even getting emotional thinking about them.

“As I said last year, I had a number of clients stricken and it’s heartbreaking to see the damage it’s done and I want to see something done about it,” said Butcher.

One Edward Jone’s associate said that she’s walking because the cause hits close to home.

Giovanna Reed lost her grandmother to Alzheimer’s.

“It was really rough for her because she was diagnosed when she was really young. Usually people get Alzheimer’s in their later years, but the genetic version of the disease tends to hit earlier. So it was really hard seeing someone so young suffer from something that usually afflicts the elderly,” explained Reed.

Their goal to raise awareness does not end after they reach Dateland. The firm pointed out that there will be a walk in Yuma in the fall.