Walk for Women draws hundreds to Cape streets

Southeast Missouri State University student-athletes walked with community members to promote awareness of women’s issues and raise funds for student-athlete scholarships Saturday in Cape Girardeau.

Senior associate athletics director Cindy Gannon, organizer of the Walk for Women, said the event is in its 10th year.

“It’s just been an amazing event,” Gannon said.

“We wanted to take the opportunity to celebrate women’s athletics,” Gannon said while acknowledging money raised at the event goes toward a fund for all student-athlete scholarships.

While exact totals were not immediately available Saturday, Gannon said over the entire 10 years of the walk, “We’ve raised close to half a million dollars,” adding it’s a tribute to the community’s generosity.

About 450 people walked in Saturday’s event, Gannon said. As of the walk’s start, 22 teams had signed up, and 165 donors were listed on the official event website.

The website listed donations of $37,740 as of Saturday afternoon.

About 100 members of the football team made a tunnel for walkers at the event’s outset, Gannon added.

“Probably 200 student-athletes are walking today,” Gannon said.

The walk began at Houck Field House on Southeast’s campus, and covered sections of North Henderson Avenue, Normal Avenue and North Pacific Street.

LaiAra Reagans, who works in Southeast’s admissions office, said this event is important to her not only as a staff member of the university, but also as a former student-athlete herself.

“It’s super important to support female athletes,” she said, adding there are a lot of student-athletes her office works with directly.

“I walked last year,” she said, holding her 1-month-old son, adding this year she chose to donate and support her husband’s efforts with the walk.

Salim Powell, Reagans’ husband and Southeast football’s cornerbacks coach, said his team actually moved their Saturday scrimmage up so they’d be available to support this event.

“It’s always good to support all athletes,” Powell said. “Raising money for scholarships, resources to make this happen, it’s important.”

Powell said every sport at Southeast was represented.

“I’ve been here 10 years, and it’s continued to grow all that time,” he said, adding he played football at Southeast while a student himself.

“It’s good to see it grow every year, with community support, and our administration does a phenomenal job at promoting and supporting us,” Powell said.

Gannon said the upshot of this event and others like it is the community’s support and engagement with the athletics community at Southeast is deeply appreciated.

“The community supports our athletes so many ways,” Gannon said. “We want to say a sincere thanks for that.”

mniederkorn@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3630

Pertinent address:

920 Broadway, Cape Girardeau, Mo.