CHARLOTTESVILLE (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) — The Walk to End Alzheimer’s will return to Charlottesville this Sunday at Sentara Martha Jefferson Hospital.

With 140 teams and 840 participants signed up as of Thursday morning, Sheri Owen, the Senior Development Manager of the Alzheimer’s Association Central and Western Virginia Chapter, said there are already 115 more walkers signed up compared to last year, and she hopes to hit over 900 by Sunday. The event will also feature 21 sponsors, the most ever, and almost 70 volunteers.

“It’ll be the biggest walk we’ve had yet,” she said.

The event, held nationally in more than 600 communities, aims to raise funds for Alzheimer’s research. In Virginia, more than 165,000 people live with the disease, apart of the over 7 million afflicted nationwide, according to the Central and Western Virginia chapter’s press release.

Owen said the chapter organizes seven walks in Virginia each year, with three happening this weekend — Charlottesville, Lynchburg and Danville. Nationally, the walk is the largest fundraiser done by the Association every year, and all of the money raised goes directly to the community, helping fund research locally, free education programs and support groups for caregivers among other services.

“All of the money goes right back into the community,” Owen said, “and it all just puts us one step closer to a cure.”

The money is raised through peer-to-peer fundraising. Participants who register can donate themselves and ask friends and family members to donate to their team, or even run their own fundraisers. These teams often include churches, greek organizations and teams that are formed in honor of loved impacted by the disease, among others.

All of the funds go back into the association and toward their main goal of finding a cure, which Owen believes thanks to recent studies and treatments will come sooner rather than later.

“I tell everybody I am confident in my lifetime, and I’m 60, that in my lifetime we are going to find a cure,” Owen said.

Finding the cure is ultimately the main goal of the walk every year. Owen share how the walk site features what they called the “Promise Garden.” The garden is made up of windmill flowers, with four colors, orange representing simply supporting the cause, yellow representing caregivers, purple representing those who have lost a relative to Alzheimer’s, and blue representing those who have the disease themself.

Each participant will pick up a flower at the start of the race that represents who they are, but every walk is led by a particpant holding a white flower, which represents “the cure we are all hoping to get,” Owen said.

Owen said there is still “absolutely” time to register for this year’s walk, and those interested can even show up day of. She said every dollar makes a difference, and called the community aspect of the event “the neat thing about this.”

“We’ll have 900 or 1,000 people all together,” she said. “They come from all different walks of life. They all look differently. They all think differently, but they are there for one reason and everybody will know that the person standing next to them is there because they are walking to find a cure to Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia.”