Last spring, Denis Asselin walked 500 miles — or 1 million steps — from his home near Philadelphia all the way to Boston on a pilgrimage in memory of his son Nathaniel. Nathaniel Asselin was an amazing young man who battled body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), a disorder related to OCD, until he took his own life at just 24 years old.  Denis’ pilgrimage was a way to honor Nathaniel’s too short life, while also raising awareness about OCD and BDD along the way (read more here). On June 7th, 2012, Denis reached Boston and was greeted by a crowd of well-wishers at the IOCDF OCD Rally.  At the rally, Denis remarked that while he walked over a million steps, there were still millions more to go towards raising awareness and understanding about OCD and BDD.

This year, we want to see how many million steps we can walk for OCD awareness together. Denis is setting out on another pilgrimage, and we are inviting all of you to walk along — helping us raise money for the foundation, and more importantly, raising awareness about OCD and related disorders along the way. 

We invite you to walk with Denis in spirit by joining our virtual walk and pledging to walk 1000, 5000, or even 1 million steps in your community.  You can walk a few miles each day leading up June 8th, or you can plan to do all of your walking on one day, and invite your friends and family to come along — it's up to you.

This virtual walk will culminate with our walk in Boston on June 8th, 2013. If you live in New England and would like to attend the Boston walk, click here. Let's see how many million steps we can collectively take for OCD if we all work together!

1 in 100 people in the US are living with OCD. And many of those people don’t have access to effective treatment. Help us change that. Take a step and be part of #1million4OCD.

How to Join

• STEP 1: Register to join the virtual walk here. This will allow you to create your very own fundraising page which you can use to reach out to your friends, family members, social media networks, coworkers, etc. to ask for their support. 
  
  It is FREE to register, but we ask that you make a minimum fundraising commitment of $50. You can choose to donate the $50 yourself at registration, or you can use the fundraising page to ask for donations from your friends and family. 


• STEP 2: Join or create a walk team, or walk and fundraise on your own. Teams are a great way to get family members and neighbors involved. For example, you can create a TEAM EDWARD to raise money in honor of your friend Edward with OCD. You can then invite all of Edward's family members and friends to join your team, and they in turn can reach out to even more people.  Teams are optional (but encouraged).

1. STEP 3: Tell us how far you plan to walk. Figure out how far you plan to walk between now and June 8, 2013. Then, use our Walk Calculator and Virtual Badge Creator to convert miles or kilometers into steps and create your own walk badge. Use the badge as your profile picture on Facebook, Twitter, and share it via email to tell everyone just how many steps you plan to walk!

• STEP 4: Start fundraising! We have many resources, tools, and tips in our Fundraising Toolkit to help you get started raising OCD awareness and fundraising for the IOCDF.

Just how many steps can you take to help us exceed our goal of 1 million steps?  Figure out how far you plan to walk between now and June 8, 2013 —for example, can you pledge to walk 0.5 miles per day, 1 mile a day, 5 miles per week, etc.? Once you have a plan, use this walk calculator to convert that distance into steps. Then, when you register for the walk, let us know how far you plan to go.  Let's see how many million steps we can collectively walk!   Once you calculate your walk distance, you will get a special badge that you can use on social media to tell everyone just how many steps you are walking.  We encourage you to share this badge on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and wherever else you can.   Click here to use the Walk Calculator & Badge Creator