The Grand River pedestrian bridge in Fergus and surrounding railings will light up blue later this month in recognition of Diabetes Awareness Month.
On Nov. 23 at 7pm the Central West Ontario region of the Canadian Diabetes Association and Centre Wellington Mayor Kelly Linton will be flipping the switch to light up the downtown river area with hundreds of blue LED lights.
“The whole idea of this is to do something, to make a statement … show the world … that we support diabetes awareness,” explained Fergus resident and project coordinator Brian Martin.
“This is a community effort … the biggest thing that we want to do is get as many people from the community out.”
The Bring Diabetes to Light campaign was born out of a 2007 United Nations international Monument Challenge.
“All around the whole world on the 14th of November (World Diabetes Day) just about every country in the world lit up something of significance,” Martin said.
“In Ontario it was the CN Tower and Niagara Falls, in New York City they did the Empire state building …
“It’s not 2007 anymore and nothing really has been done. So the Diabetes Association sort of asked their districts … ‘let’s do a campaign this year and try to get at least one community in every district to do something in blue.’”
The Central West region chose Fergus as its sole site.
“We know Brian … and we’ve done a lot of work with the Fergus Lions, they’ve been very supportive of us,” explained Heidi Fraser, public programs and services coordinator for the Canadian Diabetes Association in Central West Ontario region.
She said Martin jumped on the idea and ran with it to coordinate the event.
“We’re very thankful to him and to the Fergus Lions for their support throughout the years, Fraser said.
“They’ve helped us with our camp campaign, done tag days for us, lots of wonderful things.”
When Martin was looking at photos of the 2007 campaign he saw a poor village in the Democratic Republic of the Congo that took part.
“They lit up the city hall, they had a fence similar to (the one around the Grand River) all the way around city hall and they put Christmas lights on it,” he explained.
So Martin pitched the idea to the region and now the river railings are being lit up for the first ever Bring Diabetes to Light event.
Martin explained all the lights used will be LED to save on energy and many have been donated for his use, including four strings from FreshCo in Fergus.
He also has a friend who is dyeing white lights to make them blue for the lighting.
“Trying to light up the disease and draw people’s attention to it,” Fraser said.
“We’re seeing that there are about 11 million Canadians living with diabetes or pre-diabeties in Canada and those numbers are just staggering, so we’re trying everything we can to try and reduce the number of people affected by diabetes and in the meantime also support those living with diabetes.”
The event will begin at 7pm on Nov. 23 behind the Fergus library. After the lighting, warm apple cider will be available and representatives from the Canadian Diabetes Association will be on hand to answer any questions the public may have.
In addition to the Bring Diabetes to Light event, the central west region is also holding a Canadian Diabetes Association Expo on Nov. 20 from 12 to 4pm at Bingemans Conference Centre in Kitchener.
A “diabetes bus” from Groves Memorial Community Hospital will be available for that event for Fergus residents and the surrounding area. Visit diabetes.ca/expo for more information.
