(This came from a January, 2007 post to an online forum for fans of actress Martha Madison, whose mother has multiple sclerosis and who has become an Ambassador for the National MS Society to help raise awareness so that someday there will be a cure to help people like her mother:

"This is a neat story. It's sweet. It can also fall under the fundraising category, but I thought that I would put it here. It came from http://www.columbian.com/news/APStories/AP01142007news92764.cfm") **************************************************************************** Associated Press, 1/14/07

AUBURN, Wash. (AP) -- When someone needs help, Don Stevenson walks.

The 71-year-old former pastor has spent the past nine years walking thousands of miles to raise money for research on various diseases, including multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer's. So far it's brought in about $100,000.

Now Stevenson is walking the loop of Game Farm Park to raise $10,000 for the Huntington's Disease Society of America. Huntington's disease, a brain disorder, struck a good friend's family.

If only those scientists can find some key, he said - something that unlocks all these diseases, from multiple sclerosis to Huntington's.

"I believe if we find a cure for one, like dominoes, they will all go down," he said.

Stevenson walks for anyone in need. In the past, he's walked the West Coast for a stranger with multiple sclerosis, visited all the county seats in Ohio for a friend with cancer, and crossed the country for a father-in-law with Alzheimer's disease.

"If I did it for myself, I wouldn't make it out of the county," said Stevenson.

During his latest walk, Stevenson has company in friend Jack Meteyer, who lost family to Huntington's, a hereditary disorder for which there is no effective treatment or cure.

Stevenson passes time by singing, praying or offering advice to fellow walkers. He slows down for anyone who wishes to join him, despite a strict schedule of 34 miles a day, six days a week.

"If you wanted to crawl, he'd crawl with you," said Meteyer, 78.

Stevenson retired several years ago after 28 years as a Darigold truck driver. That's when the father of eight and grandfather of 40 began walking.

His first walk was from Seattle to Portland, Maine, for his 62-year-old wife, Loretta, whose father had Alzheimer's disease.

It took the couple four months to cross the country, taking Sundays off for church. Stevenson wore out six pair of shoes while Loretta logged 9,000 miles in the van, driving a few miles ahead of him as he caught up.

At Game Farm Park on Saturday, Loretta was in a shed, offering coffee, cocoa and fliers for passers-by. With temperatures below freezing, she stood in a sweat suit with beige earmuffs and pink butterfly barrettes in her hair, reminding Stevenson to press the mile counter when she is gone.

With a kiss she sends him off for another loop.

Stevenson has raised money walking to every lighthouse in Washington state, all the way from Tijuana, Mexico, to Anchorage, Alaska. He once walked blindfolded on a 106-mile trek across the Cascade Range.

That walk, which took some training, was to raise money for Maria Federici, who was blinded when a piece of particle board from a truck on the freeway slammed through her windshield and hit her face. She was left partially brain-damaged.

Federici didn't have insurance and her mother, Robin Abel of Renton said the money Stevenson raised helped pay for therapy and other needs.

"It's like someone offers you a hand when you're ready to drown," she said.