Charity events bring funds and awareness to juvenile arthritis
An event consisting of a charity dinner, entertainment, raffles and a poker run will highlight the upcoming fundraiser for juvenile arthritis.
Teenagers today have many challenges to face and don’t need additional worries stacked on top of an already full life.
For a pair of Triway School District students, dealing with a health concern was not something they chose, but both have shown stamina for dealing with the effects of juvenile arthritis.
Both Emma Flinner and Brayden Holt live with the disease, and on Saturday, June 22, those in the community have a chance to help them continue to treat it.
An event consisting of a charity dinner, entertainment, raffles and a poker run will highlight the upcoming fundraiser for juvenile arthritis.
The day will be packed with activities, beginning with the poker run that starts at Triway High School at 3205 Shreve Road near Wooster. The poker run will begin at 10 a.m. and eventually come to its conclusion at Smith’s Campground, 16325 County Road 23 near Loudonville. The festivities will continue there throughout the evening.
The poker run is built for motorcycles, but the event welcomes anyone wishing to participate in their automobiles. Registration will take place at THS from 8:30-10 a.m. Then it will be kickstands up at 10 a.m. as the trek begins. Participants are expected to return by 4 p.m.
The cost of the event is $25 for single riders and $35 for riders and a passenger. An additional $10 fee will earn participants a dinner and a concert by John McMullen/Friends Band. The poker run will take place rain or shine, and the dinner and concert is open to those who do not partake in the poker run.
In addition there will be a number of raffles throughout the evening, and all proceeds from the event will go to the Arthritis Foundation.
While raising funds is a priority for the event, it also has been created to bring awareness to the disease.
Juvenile arthritis is a disease in which there is inflammation of the synovium — the tissue that lines the inside of joints — in children age 16 or younger.
Juvenile arthritis is an autoimmune disease. That means the immune system, which normally protects the body from foreign substances, attacks the body instead. The disease also is idiopathic, which means no exact cause is known. Researchers believe juvenile arthritis may be related to genetics, certain infections and environmental triggers.
There are five types of juvenile arthritis: systemic arthritis, also called Still’s disease, which can affect the entire body or involve many systems of the body; oligoarthritis, also called pauciarticular juvenile rheumetoid arthritis, which affects fewer than five joints in the first six months that the child has the disease and most commonly affects the knee, ankle and wrist joints; polyarthritis, also called polyarticular juvenile idiopathic arthritis, which involves five or more joints in the first six months of the disease and often the same joints on each side of the body; psoriatic arthritis, which affects children who have both arthritis and the skin disorder, psoriasis; and enthesitis-related arthritis, which is a type of arthritis that often afflicts the spine, hips, eyes and places where tendons attach to bones.
Anyone with questions may email lstrong380@gmail.com.