St. Joseph resident helping organize walk for Cystic fibrosis

St. Joseph resident Chuck Wells is helping bring awareness to Cystic Fibrosis.

Wells, a student in Parkland College’s Respiratory Care Program, is helping spread the word about the program’s Lung Walk and Roll event taking place Oct. 5 at Parkland College located at 2400 W. Bradley Ave. in Champaign.

“We would love to have people participate in our event to help raise awareness to Cystic Fibrosis and to help with the cost of researching new medications, treatments, and ultimately a possible cure,” Wells said. “We are also wanting to raise more awareness for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.”

Wells said in order to graduate from the program students need five professional development points. The points can be earned by setting up respiratory education booths, going to respiratory related conferences or doing posts. Wells’ instructor said the program wanted to do a charity walk.

Wells had run races in the past and found the idea intriguing.

“So we went ahead and started planning a charity walk for COPD,” Well said. “We decided to do Cystic Fibrosis for our first walk to support.”

The event, which starts at 8 a.m, will include the walk as well as a flu shot clinic, smoking cessation information, respiratory equipment cleaning information, nutrition information for COPD patients and inhaler use information.

“We hope everyone who comes to participate will leave with a better understanding of the disease process of not only CF, but all other parts of COPD,” Wells said.

Participants can register on site starting at 7 a.m. or can register online. The registration fee is $20. More information can be found here.

Wells said it was important for the program to draw attention to COPD.

“COPD has moved up in the world as being the third deadliest diseases in the world according to the World Health Organization,” he said. “We hope to impart the importance research and development of new drugs, and therapies that would benefit from donations.”