This past weekend approximately $10,000 was raised during the inaugural Morden Kidney Ride, Glide, and Stride event.

"I had hoped for eighty participants to be walking, and I've been told there's more than that," said event organizer Jen Derksen. "I'm so excited, and thank you for everyone for coming out."

Derksen noted the day started off with some rain, but turned out to be a wonderful day where everyone had a good time.

Meanwhile, Val Dunphy noted these walks have been occurring throughout Manitoba and this was the first one held in Morden. She added Manitoba has the highest number of kidney disease cases.

"We have about 150,000 adults that are battling kidney disease each and every day. More and more of our youth, especially young ones, at birth are being diagnosed with kidney disease," said Dunphy.

"There's a couple of reasons we know of for sure. Diabetes and high blood pressure left uncontrolled can cause kidney disease and that is preventable. We also do a number of prevention programs to work on that area. There's also hereditary types of kidney disease. As I mentioned the young ones are being diagnosed younger and younger. We are not sure why. Research is one of the main pillars of our mission," continued Dunphy.

As for the money raised, Derksen noted it will go a long ways to help fight Kidney diseases.

"It will go to funding research as well as for donations to the dialysis units. For those of us on dialysis, some of us aren't working full time jobs, so if we are in need then they will help support us as well."

Derksen couldn't have been more thrilled with how the first event went and is thankful for all of the support.

"Thank you so much for our generous sponsors. The Cities of Winkler and Morden did fabulous in supporting this. Also, all of the people that came out for the walk, raised funds, helped fundraiser, thank you from the bottom of my heart."