The Arthritis Foundation organizes these walks throughout Michigan every year in their efforts to raise awareness and generate funds to support current programs and future research.

Health communication graduate student Alice Hoffman and arts and humanities sophomore Christina Igl both suffer from arthritis, and were chosen as the event's co-honorees who will be sharing their stories and experiences prior to the event.  

"One of our missions is to bring awareness that even kids as young as six months old can be diagnosed with juvenile arthritis," Arthritis Foundation Community Development Manager Laurie Rupp said. "With the event being on a college campus, we thought using Alice and Christina to serve as our faces of arthritis would tie it all together."

Both students are among the 50 million Americans who currently have arthritis, and the 2.3 million adults in Michigan alone who suffer from this autoimmune disease with no cure. 

“It’s hard to really convey," Hoffman said.  "People don’t really understand chronic pain unless they have it. We structure our lives differently and everything takes more time.”

Although community members will make up the majority of participants, MSU students from Alpha Omicron Pi will attend the event as volunteers. Rupp said the sorority supports juvenile arthritis as their main philanthropy, and they become involved every year by promoting the event and cheering on the participants.