The most important photo walk ever...

As many of you know, this past Saturday, 11/13/10, was the American Diabetes Association's Step Out Walk at Universal Studios. My daughter Stella was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes this past summer. I have been involved in many different charities, and have shot many previous events for the MS Society, but this one, well it was personal.

As soon as we heard about the walk, my wife and I were all in. We created our team, "The Peanut Gallery" and started fund raising immediately. At this point, our team has raised $5740. If you haven't yet donated, but were meaning to, please do so. They are accepting donations through December 8th. I am so proud, and amazed by our efforts, and the generosity of many of you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I was pulling double duty, both shooting for the ADA, and walking with my family. It was great to walk with family and friends, in our fantastic team shirts designed by Jeffery Saddoris. My daughter was very excited to know that there were so many people that also were walking to find a cure and  that all the people there were focused on the same goal, finding a cure for diabetes. She proudly wore her Red Strider hat (only offered to those with diabetes) and walked the whole distance.

The weather was beautiful, and walking the back lot of Universal was a lot of fun. There were plenty of refreshments and snacks along the way, and the support staff and volunteers were amazing. The end of the race, and mass exodus of walkers proved to be a bit of a challenge, as it seems the amount of participants was grossly under estimated, but it's something to work on for next year.

A big thank you goes out to Jeffery, Nikki, Joe, Mike, Geo, and Voytek for taking images. I created a Flickr group to post all the images here.

After the walk, we went to BJ's for lunch in Burbank for a celebratory lunch and a beer. Would have loved to have had lunch at Universal, but sadly, none of the restaurants at City Walk have the nutritional information. And of course, a reminder of why we were there in the first place

Thank you everyone.