The Western North Carolina community is celebrating March's National Traumatic Brain Injury Awareness Month with the 5th annual Brain Injury Association of North Carolina (BIANC) Walk and Roll-athon on this Saturday, April 9 in Asheville's Carrier Park. The event will run from 9:30 am to 1:00 pm.

Walk and Roll-athons have been held in several N.C. cities throughout March and early April, including events in Concord, Greenville, and Raleigh-Morrisville. BIANC's goal is to provide support for people with traumatic brain injury through four actions: prevention, education, research and advocacy.

Over 180,000 North Carolinians are living with traumatic brain injury, and over 1.7 million people in the U.S. sustain a TBI each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Injury Prevention. To learn more about what BIANC is doing to help raise awareness about this quiet epidemic, visit their website.

And for more information on how you can get involved and participate in the Asheville Walk and Roll-athon this coming Saturday, check out the information sheet from BIANC's website.

For a story about a local man recovering from a traumatic brain injury with the help of CarePartners Rehabilitative Hospital, read this story from WLOS. Please note that the actual date for the Walk and Roll-athon is this Saturday, April 9--not April 17 as the WLOS website claims. Thanks!