From blocks away, you could hear the beat of the music, that disco staccato that had some residents near 10th Street craning their necks to see what was going on. Police vehicles had set up barricades, marking the route nearly 1,300 people would shortly take.
It was chilly for so late in April, yet people kept warm doing stretching exercises as they gathered at the Panasonic headquarters field, moving as if dancing – although the purpose was simply to allow them to stretch before they took their stroll through Secaucus Streets.
One could smell the river as low tide left flats of mud across Meadowlands Parkway, where sea gulls and other shore birds gathered, cocking their heads oddly at the sudden increase in human population. The birds had witnessed plenty of joggers along the route along Meadowlands Parkway, but only once a year did hundreds descend on their quite abode, rallying to raise money for the March of Dimes’ Walk America program.
People came in all shapes and sizes, ages and ethnic backgrounds: men and women, sports-minded, even couch potatoes, to make their mark on what has become an annual fundraiser in Secaucus.
For most part, the Sunday, April 29 event was a noisy affair, with people talking or laughing. They were led by Mayor Dennis Elwell and the sea of navy blue shirts that made up the approximately 125 people of “Team Elwell,” a group developed by the mayor last year to get the community involved in charity efforts. This was up from the 100 people who had signed onto the mayor’s walking team last year.
“Although we don’t have all the numbers yet, the Elwell team raised more than $2,500,” said Town Administrator Anthony Iacono last week.
“Team Elwell” wasn’t the only group participating. Panasonic, Kearny Federal Savings Bank, Allied Office Products, Movado Group, Ernst & Young, and Federal Express also fielded large teams for the fundraiser.
Margot Spidel, press person for the North Jersey Chapter of the March of Dimes, said the Secaucus event drew about 1,300 people and was expected to raise nearly $130,000 in donations. In North Jersey, March of Dimes raised about $1.8 million.
A 31-year old event, the March of Dimes WalkAmerica is the nation’s first and most successful walking event. In New Jersey, 25 communities hosted events, including two in Hudson County. The money raised from these events is used to help prevent birth defects and infant mortality by funding programs of education, research and public awareness.
Catherine Murray, a local real estate broker, said this was her second year, and that she had donated money towards printing the t-shirts.
Murray said she took the whole walk starting and ending at the Panasonic headquarters on Meadowlands Parkway. “It took about an hour and 45 minutes,” she said. “We walked and talked and looked at streets we never saw before or couldn’t see well because we normally zipped passed them at 25 miles an hour.”
The landscape was blooming with color. Besides the spring plantings done at various town-owned properties, walkers passed under magnolia, cherry and apple trees brimming with pink flowers, as well as roadside dogwood trees just showing their display of buds.
“It was a neat way of seeing Secaucus,” Murray said, noting that she had met several teenagers from Paterson in the march.
Starting out
Marchers began and ended at the Panasonic headquarters complex on Meadowlands Parkway. The day’s events began with pre-march activities including stretching exercises and short speeches by representatives from the town and from the March of Dimes.
Walk America has been going since 1970, said organizers, with participation from more than 1,400 communities across America. More than a million people walk on a mission to raise money in order to improve the health of babies by preventing birth defects and infant mortality. President Franklin Roosevelt established the March of Dimes in 1938 to save America’s youth from polio. He created a partnership of volunteers and researchers under a premise that people can solve any problem if they work together.
Within 17 years, the Salk vaccine had been developed, but since then the March of Dimes has expanded its purpose to fight many of the causes of birth defects. On an average day in the United States 10,662 babies are born. Of these babies, 933 will be born low or very low birthweight, and another 411 will be born with a birth defect. On an average day in the United States 96 babies will die.
Research funded by the March of Dimes included the development of the Salk and Sabin polio vaccines, the first bone marrow transplant to treat a birth defect, and research that discovered that drinking alcohol causes birth defects.