Grab your favorite walking shoes and head down to McKey Park at the intersection of Burton Street and North Oak Street today for the 2008 American Heart Association Start! Heart Walk. A host of fun and educational activities will kick off at 4:30 p.m. and will be followed by the walk at 5 p.m.

Participants will enjoy a sidewalk-lined path from McKey Park down Burton Street to North Patterson Street to Roosevelt Drive to North Oak Street back to McKey Park. Lori Cauley, a regional director for the American Heart Association said that the Start! Heart Walk “is a great opportunity for individuals and corporate teams to improve their health by walking and hopefully make the pledge to include walking as part of their daily routine.”

There is no minimum fee to participate. Even the smallest of donations will help the American Heart Association Valdosta Chapter realize its 2008 goal of $137,500 for the walk and help save lives from this country’s No. 1 and No. 3 killers — stroke and heart disease.

On Saturday, the Georgia Chapter of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation will conduct its annual Great Strides: Taking Steps to Cure Cystic Fibrosis walk. Registration will begin at 7:30 a.m., and the walk will kick off an hour later, taking participants on a scenic tour of Wild Adventures.

This is the largest national fund-raising event for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Funds raised help the organization find a cure for Cystic Fibrosis, an inherited chronic disease that affects the lungs and digestive systems of about 30,000 children and adults in the United States.

In people with Cystic Fibrosis, a defective gene and its protein product cause the body to produce unusually thick, sticky mucus that clogs the lungs and leads to life-threatening lung infections and obstructs the pancreas and stops natural enzymes from helping the body break down and absorb food.

Do something active today and Saturday. Take a walk and help save a life.