#duwmee : the walk

It has become an annual tradition just before Christmas: the volunteers from Mobile School organise a big charity walk during the national charity week "De Warmste Week" (the warmest week) organised by the national radio Studio Brussel. 

As member of the "event" volunteer team, I participate in the preparations and start working on the communication as of September with a true build up of communication from October which results in multiple posts on 3 different social media channels per day in December. It's no surprise that my backpack on the day itself holds multiple devices and battery packs as equipment :D.

From the registrations we knew beforehand we'd hit all records again with a whopping > 850 walkers that would join us during the day for the entire walk or part of the walk. While I'd only walk the last segment of the walk with my family, I drove during the day from reststop to reststop to take pictures , get the atmosphere and share online.  After a stormy day during which all had to be physically prepared on the different locations, we enjoyed miraculously a blue sunny sky and mild weather. Halleluja. 

On each stop I waited for the group to arrive, rest and then take off again with an increasing number of walkers each time. Just before noon some Radio 2 reporters joined the walk for a short part to capture the atmosphere and record some interviews, which were on national radio later that afternoon.

Later in the afternoon, Jan arrived with the children as well as my sister with her family to join for the last part of the walk. We waited a bit before we could take the bus that would drop us off at our chosen starting point...the bus ride on the front row of the dubbledeck bus was Beertje's highlight of the day while he was busy all drive steering along. 

And then we were ready to take of for our 8 kilometers during sunset to arrive in the darkness, all decorated with christmas lights near the Studio Brussel event where we'd be able to present our incredible result....more of that later. First we enjoyed the walk with the incredible sight of a stream of people until our horizon in front of us, as well as the horizon behind us.  850  people make an incredible long stream of walkers, which also resulted in a lot of supporters along the way that came out of their houses to photograph us, wave or give a driveway concert with a blues harmonica and music box.  Some houses that knew we'd walk by had also decorated their garden which was so heart warming.