Adam Prudhomme
Editor
In honour of January being Alzheimer Awareness month, marathon skater Steve McNeil is set to skate Kingston’s outdoor Springer Market Square rink on Jan. 14 for 19 hours and 26 minutes-consecutively.
This is the 11th year he has been skating 19 hour, 26 minute marathons on outdoor rinks. Each year, on the second Saturday of January, National Skate Day for Alzheimer’s during National Alzheimer’s Awareness month, McNeil skates 19 hours and 26 minutes in one Canadian city to honour his mother and all families in Canada battling with Alzheimer’s and dementia to raise much needed funds and awareness for the Alzheimer Societies across Canada. This will mark the second straight year the marathon will take place in downtown Kingston. All told the 61-year-old from Etobicoke has completed the challenge over 30 times in cities across Canada.
The 19 hours and 26 minutes represents 1926, the birth year of his mother Eunice. Her passing from Alzheimer’s is what promoted McNeil to fight back. Skating was his therapy to deal with her diagnosis and eventually became his way of giving back.
Alzheimer Society of KFLA is excited that McNeil will be skating in Kingston again and hopes that residents will join him to visit, skate and show their support for this important cause.
Steve McNeil gets lost in his music as he glides next to Kingston’s city hall as part of his 19 hour and 26 minute skate, which raised money for Alzheimer’s last January. Photo by Adam Prudhomme.
He’ll glide onto the ice just after midnight on Jan. 14, skating through the early morning and with the goal of not stepping off the ice until 7:26 p.m. Ideally this year’s weather will be a little more cooperative as he battled frigid temperatures last year, performing his feat while the region was under a cold weather warning from the local health unit.
McNeil’s website is www.1926Skate.com. Donations may be made to the site or to the Alzheimer Society of Kingston, Frontenac, Lennox and Addington website www.alzheimers.ca/kfla for the Kingston skate, and all donations will remain in the local community.
For more information about the 1926Skate or the Alzheimer Society and its programs and services, call the Society at 613-544-3078.