The rain may have dampened the road, but it didn’t dampen the spirits of the nearly 100 participants in Saturday’s annual Women of Distinction “Walk to the Park” event.

The event is sponsored every year by the Women of Distinction, a community service group. The proceeds from the event go toward purchasing gas cards, to help local cancer patients with the costs of traveling to and from treatments.

Yolanda Webster, secretary of the Women of Distinction, said the walk celebrates “the fighters, the survivors and the fallen.” During the opening ceremony, she said that the event originally focused on only breast cancer patients, but later grew to encompass all different kinds of cancer patients.

Stephanie Barnes, president of the Women of Distinction, said that the group was formed “to uplift and strengthen the community as a whole.”

“We’re helping not just ourselves, but other members of the community,” she said.
Barnes explained that Atmore Community Hospital employee Gayle Thompson, who is fighting breast cancer, was scheduled to be the event’s speaker but was unable to attend because she was undergoing a treatment. Barnes also noted that Women of Distinction member Stephanie Buitron would be joining the other walkers “in spirit,” while serving in Afghanistan that day.

The Rev. Quinston Ephraim sang a gospel song and gave a short Bible lesson during the opening ceremony Saturday. He told the walkers to “walk by faith, and not just by sight.”

Barnes told the walkers that they could elect to do their walk inside the YMCA building, but those in attendance unanimously declared they wanted to still do it outside, even in the drizzling rain.

Sporting umbrellas and ponchos, the walkers traveled from the YMCA building to McRae Street, then onto Presley Street and across the Escambia County High School campus before coming onto Lindberg Avenue and ending at Tom Byrne Park. Two Atmore Police Department cars provided escorts to keep the walkers safe.

The Women of Distinction have also scheduled a Dec. 14 holiday gala, and the proceeds will go toward a scholarship for an ECHS student.

For more information about the group, search for “Women of Distinction” on Facebook, or email them at womenofdistinction@live.com.