Hundreds expected at Santa Rosa walk against genocide on Sunday

A world free of genocide will be on their minds - and comfortable shoes on their feet - when people of conscience meet Sunday morning outside of Santa Rosa’s Congregation Shomrei Torah.

They’ll take part in the Walk to End Genocide, created seven years ago by a 14-year-old boy who’d become aware of the mass killings in Darfur and felt compelled to act.

Since then, the walk Gabe Ferrick founded has raised more than $100,000 for relief to survivors of genocide in Darfur, Congo and elsewhere, and for advocacy to resolve the issues that can lead to mass killings.

Participants in Sunday’s walk will gather at 8:30 a.m. at the synagogue on Bennett Valley Road, near Farmers Lane. There will be speakers, music, African crafts, a solar cooker demonstration and, for all walkers, home-baked cookies.

Ferrick graduated from Montgomery High School in 2013 and left the organizing of the walk to Noah Bacon and Jacob Matalon.

Bacon, who’s 15 and a student at Sonoma Academy, notes that Sunday’s walk commemorates the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Nazi Germany’s Auschwitz concentration camp, and the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide committed by the Ottoman Empire.

For more information on the walk, visit santarosa.walktoendgenocide.org.