FLORENCE, S.C. — Walkers, heart survivors and their families filled downtown Florence on Saturday, Oct. 24, for the Pee Dee Heart Walk, and the annual American Heart Association event brought in more than $100,000 for the region.
The walk started from the Francis Marion University Performing Arts Center on South Dargan Street, with the festival opening at 9 a.m. and walkers stepping off at 9:45.
MUSC Health ranked among the leading teams, raising $23,000 and beating its own $15,000 target by $8,000. More than a dozen sponsors and donors backed this year’s effort.
James Harrell, who leads Global Industrial Paper Packaging at Sonoco, chaired the 2026 walk. Organizers have pointed to a stark statistic: nine of every 10 people whose hearts stop outside a hospital die, and more than half never get CPR from a bystander.
The heart association says it trained 133,000 South Carolinians in CPR over the past year. Locally, it is pushing for every school in the state to have AEDs and a plan for cardiac emergencies.
Filed under: Florence SC Health News
