Photo by Wayne Allen | Daily Times
More than 60 future marines pushed a Hummer through the Hike for Hospice on Saturday.
Photo by Wayne Allen | Daily Times
More than 1,000 people participated in the Hike for Hospice on Saturday, to raise money for SOMC Hospice.
By WAYNE ALLEN
PDT Staff Writer
The 26th annual Southern Ohio Medical Center (SOMC) Hike For Hospice was held Saturday, with an estimated 1,200 people in attendance. Hospital officials are estimating $50,000 was raised for SOMC Hospice through the annual fund raising event.
Teresa Ruby, director of SOMC Hospice, said she was overwhelmed by all of the support that was shown in the amount of participants and the amount of money raised.
“Our program serves people in our community regardless of their ability to pay. The money generated from events like these goes into a fund to help cover the needs of patients and families,” Ruby said.
SSgt. Milton Kelley, of the Marine Recruiting office in Portsmouth was joined by 60 future Marines at the hike. They used the event as a training exercise.
“As recruiters we have a couple of missions, first is recruiting people. The second is, getting our people prepared for the riggers of training. Through the exercise here we are getting them more physically prepared,” Kelley said. “We’ve got four different events going on today, we are going to break our group of 60 people into four squadrons, who will be assigned different missions.”
He said the first squad ran in formation on Saturday, caring the Marine flag and singing cadence. The second squad was pushing a Marine Corps. Humvee, the third squad was carrying 600-pound sand tubes, and the fourth squad was resting. And everyone was shifting squads every three minutes.
“Through the exercise here we are getting them more physically prepared. With the formation runs and the toughness of the event, we are training the mentally to be able to accomplish these tasks they might not have been exposed to before,” Kelley said.
He said this is the first time they have done something like this at the Hike For Hospice.
For more information about SOMC Hospice, call 740-356-2643 or 740-356-2653.
Wayne Allen may be reached at 740-353-3101, ext. 208, or wallen@heartlandpublications.com.
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