Third annual Troy Witches Walk set for Saturday

TROY, N.Y. >> The third annual Troy Witches Walk is set to step off Saturday at 7 p.m. at Bootleggers On Broadway.

The walk is a fundraiser designed to help “Nick’s Fight to be Healed Foundation,” in the fight to support pediatric cancer patients.

“My nephew, who’s a survivor of leukemia, he is in remission currently and he was helped out immensely by the community and the people of Troy,” one of the event organizers Rebecca Weiss said. “We did a huge fundraiser for him a few years back and raised over $10,000 dollars. What his family has done since is they’ve paid everything forward. They attend a ton of events. Nick’s Fight to be Healed is one of the major foundations that’s special to their situation.”

“In honor of Christian’s Crusade for the Cure, all of the money is pushed to Nick’s Fight to be Healed to help local kids in this area going through the same thing that my nephew did. It’s kind of a win-win, it helps the City of Troy, it helps the small businesses, highlights some of the good things about Troy and helps raise money for kids with pediatric cancer,” Weiss added.

Weiss said that the event continues to grow each year.

“This year, because it’s a little bit bigger a few of the bars have agreed to sell tickets and they’ve put info on their [social media] pages as well, which is good for them too, it helps their businesses,” Weiss said of the bar crawl walk which starts at Bootleggers and makes stops along Shmaltz, Ryan’s Wake, Brown’s Brewing, Wolff’s Biergarten, McAddy’s, Frank-

lin Alley Social Club and ends at The Ruck. Weiss said that she believes the event draws a lot of attention and that the participating bars are helpful in making the event a success each year.

“I think when all of these women and guys are dressed in their costumes and going from bar to bar, we get a lot of attention that’s for sure. The bars are great, each bar does a witches brew, they come up with their own recipe specific to the witches walk and that’s part of the wristband donation because all of the funds go directly to Nick’s Fight to be Healed,” Weiss said. Organizers said first and second place prizes are given out for the best and most original costume. Weiss also noted that they do a 50/50 raffle at each bar, with half of the funds going toward the foundation and the other half to the winner.

Tickets are $25 dollars at the door and appetizers are free for the first hour.