‘It’s something I can do’: 91-year-old walks a total of 4 miles to help raise money for countries in need

PARKERSBURG, W.Va. (WTAP/Gray News) - A 91-year-old woman is walking a total of four miles to help raise money and awareness for the lack of water many people around the world experience.

Imogene Aebi is one of the biggest fundraisers for the Mid-Ohio Valley Walk4Water fundraiser.

Aebi said first became aware of the needs of other countries when she was just a little girl.

She said she remembers her parents receiving letters from missionaries in Africa letting her parents know about medicine needed there.

“My father would build little wooden boxes with compartments so that medicines would fit in there, and then he would mail it,” she said.

Aebi said the memories of her father receiving those letters and sending medicine back to Africa have stuck with her over the years.

When she moved to Vincent, Ohio, and heard about the Walk4Water event, she said it was a special connection.

The Walk4Water program is within Healing Hands International (HHI), a Christian Organization that aids, equips and empowers countries in need. One part of the organization’s mission is to provide access to clean water to countries that do not have it.

The idea behind the Walk4Water fundraising program is for volunteers to walk four miles so those without water don’t have to.

According to HHI, the average distance many people in impoverished countries have to walk to access water is four miles, if there even is any water to be found.

For those who live in the Mid-Ohio Valley, that distance is the same from 31st Street in Parkersburg to the Parkersburg Country Club.

Jeri Blackwell, the Mid-Ohio Valley Walk4Water coordinator, said that one out of five children under the age of 5 dies from water-borne bacteria or illness.

“We brush our teeth in the morning, or we go to the refrigerator to get water, and we don’t think for a second that it’ll make us sick or that it’ll hurt our children. That’s not something many around the world can do,” Blackwell said.

Aebi said she imagines women and children in other countries carrying 40 pounds of water for miles on a daily basis. While she physically cannot do that at her current age, she said she can help raise money.

“I can walk. And it’s serving a purpose for the people over in Africa to be able to have the benefit of closer water, and water that they need, and so that motivates me,” she said.

Aebi’s driveway is 300 feet from her house to the road. She walks it every day to meet the four-mile goal.

After walking, she checks it off her calendar to remind herself she did it.

Being in her 90s, Aebi said she is very fortunate she still has the ability to walk a little bit every day to do what she can to help others around the world.

“It’s something I can do, and there’s a need, and so, I just want to be a part of that,” she said.

The Mid-Ohio Valley Walk4Water will take place at Parkersburg City Park on Sunday, Sept. 8, at 2 p.m.

To register for the event, click here. For more information about the event, click here.