By Daily Titan
Published: October 18, 2009

By Scarlett Durham
For the Daily Titan

Uways Khakoo was only 7 months old when he died from a mysterious immune system disorder in 2007. For almost two and a half months, Uways lived in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit of Children’s Hospital of Orange County. The care provided to him enabled him to go home and spend the last three months of his life with his family.

Uways’ family joined thousands of families and individuals on Sunday for CHOC Children’s and CHOC Children’s at Mission Hospital’s 19th Annual CHOC Walk in the Park at the Disneyland Resort in memory of Uways and other CHOC children.

Sunday marked the third year Zaheed Khakoo has walked for his son, Uways, and CHOC. “Having been in the situation where you spend a lot of time in the hospital, you realize how hard the doctors and nurses work for your children,” Khakoo said. “This walk gives us an opportunity to thank them and raise money so that CHOC can provide exemplary medical treatment to other patients so that they can return home to their families.”

The 5K walk is a charity event where participants donate a minimum of $50 to CHOC Children’s. The donations will help advance the education, research, care and services that CHOC has to offer patients.

The $50 minimum donation is only required for people who want to walk the event, but anyone can donate a dollar or more to sponsors like Khakoo whose slogan has been, “Give up your Starbucks coffee today and donate your three dollars towards a worthy cause.” Khakoo raised $2,295 for this year’s walk.

Last year, 15,000 individuals raised $1.6 million for the walk. This year’s walk made $1,171,061, as of 2:30 p.m. on Oct. 18.

Cal State Fullerton’s psychology club, Psi Chi, joined the cause for the first time this year. “We decided to join because it’s a great way to get our community service hours and help a worthy cause,” said Psi Chi President Michelle Warstadt, a psychology major.

“Anyone is welcome to help donate to Psi Chi through our Fullerton Web page as well as joining our sponsor group at the walk,” said Ginger Klee, Webmaster of Psi Chi and a psychology major, before the walk.

Following the walk, Klee said their club had raised $430. “It went really well … (We) had a lot of fun too,” she said.

Walkers strolled through Disneyland and Disney’s California Adventure before the park’s official opening while Disney characters cheered them on. Newly included among the characters rooting for CHOC walkers were Tiana and Prince Naveen from Disney’s new 2-D animated feature, “The Princess and the Frog.”

At the end of the walk in Downtown Disney, business sponsors handed out free samples and gifts. Sponsors this year included Kia Motors, Hurley, Chick-fil-A, 102.7 KISS FM, Mimi’s Café, Arrowhead and Nordstrom.