Families who have lost children will walk in remembrance of all children lost in miscarriages, stillbirths, and premature deaths this Sunday.

The Bediako Birthing Center at Hillsdale Hospital will host its 19th annual Walk of Remembrance Oct. 18, starting at 1 p.m. in Owens Park near Baw Beese Lake. Hillary Zimmerman, a clinical nurse mid-wife at the hospital, will oversee the walk this year.

President Ronald Reagan designated October as Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month in 1988. A group of nurses in Hillsdale started the walk in 2007, according to Zimmerman.

“It started with a group of the OB-GYN nurses 19 years ago, trying to figure out what we could do in Hillsdale because there was kind of a movement nationally for honoring infants who had passed away or children,” Zimmerman said. “So the nurses kind of came together to see what they could do and they came up with the Walk of Remembrance.”

Amy Zoll, a mid-wife at Hillsdale Meadows Clinic, said 10 people attended the first walk when she and a group of nurses started it.

“There were a handful of us, some that are not with the hospital anymore, but we were super passionate about it,” Zoll said. “When you’re working in a field that is relatively extremely happy and you experience something like that with a family, you want to support them. And so we were collaborating with some of the other programs in a variety of ways. And we thought, ‘why can’t we just do this?’ We just decided we are going to offer it to anybody who has lost a child. We want to support all of them.”

Zimmerman said that  nearly a hundred people have attended the walk.

“As the years have gone on, we just see it growing and growing,” Zoll said. “We get individuals from other towns coming because it is just such a great support system for families and women that have experienced an infant or child loss get together and kind of talk and remember and say their name.”

The walk helps families find community and healing, Zimmerman said.

“If you are someone who has suffered, or been alongside someone who has suffered, it’s just a place you can come to just know that you’re not alone,” Zimmerman said. “Being around a community and just people who share something similar to you is impactful. And for a lot of families, moms, dads, it’s just one step towards healing.”

Opening with a prayer ceremony, leaders of the walk will cover the history of the walk, and then a member from the community will share their story in a speech, Zimmerman said. The walk then continues by honoring the babies.

“We walk down to Baw Beese Lake and we used to release balloons, but that’s not very environmentally friendly with the farmers,” Zimmerman said. “So now we blow bubbles in memory of them and kind of send the bubbles up to heaven in honor of the babies.”