Joan Taylor and Gerry Wright have joined Race for a Reason and Operation Eyesight to walk the El Camino de Santiago trail in Spain this April.
Operation Eyesight has partnered with Race for a Reason, to create cause-related fitness and adventure travel.
“This is a great opportunity to represent Canada on behalf of Operation Eyesight and to walk the Camino trail, something we’ve wanted to do for some time. We both feel honoured to walk this for personal reasons related to honouring family and friends with vision loss,” Taylor says.
The El Camino (also known as the Way of St. James) was a very important Christian pilgrim trail during medieval times.
It tracks across the northern coast of Spain and has been walked for a thousand years by many people from all over the world.
You may be familiar with this trail after watching the recent release of the movie starring Martin Sheen entitled The Way.
Taylor and Wright have committed to this cause and have personally funded their own trip and are now fundraising for Operation Eyesight.
“If you can read this you’re better off than 285 million people who cannot. For over 50 years Operation Eyesight has been providing sight saving treatment and blindness prevention to millions of people,” Wright says. “In the developing world where 80 per cent of blindness is preventable, blindness is a death sentence. “Thirty dollars is all it takes to restore someone’s vision and give them back a life.”
“Walking the Camino has been on our bucket list of things to do for a few years and when the opportunity arose it seemed the perfect way to raise money for this wonderful organization,” says Taylor who manages Yuculta Lodge.
“I only need to walk around Yucalta Lodge and visit some of the residents who live here to see how low vision impacts their lives.”
Although the trail is eight hundred Kilometers long and typically takes one to two months to walk it the local couple will be walking the last 125 kilometers in a few short days.
You may see them walking around town or training on local trails including Mount Washington.
For further information or to donate to Operation Eyesight and recieve a charitable tax receipt visit info@operationeyesight.com and type into the personal pages “Mission for Vision” or call 1-800-585-8265.