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Family, community members participate in 10th annual Cleveland Vision Walk to help raise money

Posted at 3:04 PM, May 19, 2018
and last updated 2018-05-19 19:59:01-04

On Saturday dozens of families and community members laced up their shoes and hit the pavement to help find a cure for blinding diseases.

About 10 million Americans suffer from blinding diseases, many of which have no cure.

At just 2 years old Jake Morrison was diagnosed with juvenile x-link retinoschisis, or XLRS, last fall.  

Morrison's mother, Antoinette, said it took doctors seven months to determine his condition. "It's a rare disease. It impacts one in 25,000 males," she said. "As a parent, it is very hard. It was probably earth-shattering news when we got the diagnosis." 

At this point, there is no cure for XLRS and it's not totally clear how much Morrison can see. But doctors will now have to monitor Morrison regularly, watching how his eyes develop.

"We know his future is kind of uncertain because we don't know how this disease will progress for him so in the meantime we're just trying to be the best advocates we can be for Jake," Antoinette said. 

Today Jake and his team, Jake's Eyevengers, joined dozens of others at Cleveland's Egdewater Park. Teams walking in honor of their loved ones facing retinal diseases, raising money to find cures.

So far the Cleveland Vision Walk has raised nearly $70,000.