Last week, Tony Brannon took the final step in a 1,200-mile fundraising trek for Dementia Bermuda.

He is hoping the yearlong effort pays off because the charity is a key provider of support for the 3,000 people on the island living with dementia.

“I’ve been involved with Dementia Bermuda for 12 years, basically with the music therapy programme,” Mr Brannon said.

“When Liz Stewart started the charity in honour of her mother, who passed from Alzheimer’s, she asked if I would be involved. And so I have been doing it ever since, three days a week. And it’s something I really enjoy doing.”

Dementia Bermuda describes dementia as an umbrella term for “different brain disorders that affect a person’s memory, thinking, emotions and behaviour”.

“Dementia is a progressive and terminal condition that affects an estimated 3,000 people in Bermuda — a number expected to rise along with our ageing population,” said the charity.

“The impact is far-reaching, placing immense strain on families and the healthcare system. With 75 per cent of people living with dementia in Bermuda uninsured or underinsured, access to community-based support is critical.”

Mr Brannon’s trek began unexpectedly. He walks regularly and when reached the end of a month’s stay in Barbados in January, he realised he had clocked up 160 miles.

Surprised by how easy it was to reach that number, he decided to keep moving, ask for pledges, and donate the money to charity.

“I’ve seen other people doing walks, raising money for charity. Obviously there’s the End-to-End, and then there was a famous journalist in England that just did five marathons in five days — she raised over $6 million. So I thought, well, 1,200 miles. Liz’s charity’s always doing events to raise money to help fund all its programmes, I’ll just turn this into a fundraiser for Dementia Bermuda.”

Over the course of nearly 12 months, he walked in three to five-mile stints, sometimes continuing for as much as 13 if he felt strong. Bermuda’s heat was not a problem, and rain rarely bothered him. Despite being a longtime figure on the island’s music scene, he walked in silence, his Garmin on his wrist to track his progress.

“I’m the kind of guy that can play tennis at noon or I can go for a walk at noon in July. It doesn’t bother me that it’s hot. What I do not like is wind,” Mr Brannon said.

“I do like to hear what’s going on. You have got to be aware of the traffic. You have to really have your wits about you. I don’t need music. I’ve heard all the music I need to hear in my life — I’ve heard every note played every which way, I like the sound of nature.”

He asked people to donate anything from $1 to 1 cent a mile, certain he would reach his goal.

“People that pledge 1 cent, that’s $12. Twelve dollars is roughly the equivalent of two lattes in any coffee shop in town — there’s a lot of people that can certainly afford $12. I tried to make it so that everybody could feel comfortable with whatever level they wanted to donate to the charity,” Mr Brannon said.

As a runner who swapped the exercise for speed walking “a while back”, he did not think he had set himself too onerous a task.

“Doing 25 miles a week or 100 miles a month is actually very doable and the fitter you get, the easier it is, of course,” Mr Brannon said.

“I started putting it out there. People started sending money in through the ‘donate’ link on Dementia Bermuda’s website and I hadn’t even completed it. We’ve got $14,000 in already.”

His hope is to significantly increase that amount as many of his friends preferred to wait until he had officially finished before donating.

“I’d like to think that we could raise maybe $20,000 or $30,000. It would be really great for the charity to have that come in,” he said.

It is what spurred his walks well after he returned to Bermuda from Barbados.

“I had a kink in the road in September. Around the 12th of September, I had this massive attack of pain. I went to [the Emergency Department] and I had to have my gall bladder whipped out.”

Although he initially worried it would be a tremendous setback, six days later he was back on the road again.

“I’d already done 44 miles in the first week of September, so I started back with two or three miles a day and worked up to finish the month with 100. I was gentle at first, but I wasn’t going to let it slow me down,” he said.

“The thing about it is, everybody I know knows somebody that’s been affected by it. My granny died of it. Liz’s mother passed away from it. I know so many people that have been affected. Some people are put in care homes, some people can afford to stay at home, either way it’s an expensive and [mentally] draining situation.”

He has spent a lot of time volunteering with the charity so he has seen its impact on the community first-hand.

“I'm just happy to be able to help with raising awareness of the charity. I think the visibility of what they're doing in Bermuda has increased a lot over the last few years. Erica Fulton, who runs the charity, does an amazing job [along with] Marie Fay and the team that she has. They work really hard to get support for Dementia Bermuda.”

• For information on Dementia Bermuda or to make a donation visit dementiabermuda.bm/donate