North Myrtle Beach, S.C. | Community News | Published September 21, 2026
The GFWC North Myrtle Beach Woman’s Club has set Saturday, Oct. 17, for the sixth annual “What a Difference a Mile Makes!” Walk for Domestic Violence Awareness — and this year’s flyer lists the morning as a free event open to the public.
The club’s signature October fundraiser returns to the North Myrtle Beach Park & Sports Complex at 150 Citizens Circle in Little River, where the event has been staged since its debut in 2021. The published schedule opens with a ceremony at 9 a.m., sends walkers out at 10 a.m., and closes with raffles and remarks at 11 a.m. Proceeds go to the club’s domestic violence victims fund, which pays for direct, practical help — groceries, gas, counseling, education and awareness work — for people rebuilding their lives in Horry and Brunswick counties.
Admission is the notable change. Promotional materials for the 2026 walk describe it as a free public event, where past editions carried a registration donation of $20 per walker with children under 12 admitted at no charge. Organizers continue to seek sponsors, and donations remain the engine of the fundraiser regardless of what it costs to show up.
A mile around the lake, and a morning built around it
The sports complex is an unusually good fit for a walk of this kind. Its paved loop circles a lake behind the amphitheater, roughly a mile of flat, shaded-in-places ground that a grandmother and a stroller can finish at the same pace. In recent years the club has routed participants around that lake, seated non-walkers near the amphitheater so no one had to sit out the ceremony, and welcomed leashed dogs along the route.
Past walks have wrapped the mile inside a small festival: survivor speakers and local officials at the microphone, live music and a DJ, food trucks, craft and art vendors, children’s activities, a raffle of decorated baskets, and resource tables staffed by the agencies that answer the phone when someone finally calls. Police and fire crews have turned out in support. The club has not yet published its full 2026 vendor and entertainment lineup.
The first walk, held in October 2021, drew more than 100 participants and roughly 30 local sponsors — enough of a showing that the club made it annual. Five years on it has become one of the more visible October gatherings on this end of the Grand Strand, and the purple T-shirts moving along the lake path have become a familiar sight to anyone driving Robert Edge Parkway that weekend.
Where the money goes
The club directs walk proceeds to its domestic violence victims fund, which it uses year-round rather than in a single grant. Club materials describe assistance with food, fuel, counseling and education, plus the prevention and awareness programming that fills its October calendar. The money stays regional, supporting victim services on both sides of the state line in Horry County and neighboring Brunswick County, North Carolina.
That local focus matters because the formal support network here is still young. The Family Justice Center, which serves Horry and Georgetown counties from offices in Conway and Georgetown, operates a 24-hour crisis line at 844-208-0161 and coordinates advocacy, safety planning and support groups at no cost. Horry County went years without a dedicated emergency shelter for domestic violence victims before recent efforts to build one; gap-filling money of the kind the Woman’s Club raises has often covered the expenses that fall between formal programs — a tank of gas to get to a hearing, a first month of counseling, a child’s school supplies.
Why South Carolina keeps marking October this way
October is national Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and South Carolina has long had a hard stake in it. For more than two decades of the Violence Policy Center’s annual When Men Murder Women study, the state ranked among the ten worst in the nation for the rate at which women were killed by men, topping the list several times. The organization suspended its state-by-state rankings beginning in 2023, citing reliability problems in federal crime data during the FBI’s transition to a new reporting system, so a current state rank is not available — but the national findings it still publishes are blunt enough: nearly nine in ten women murdered by men are killed by someone they know.
The walk is not the club’s only push on the issue this fall. Members are also building their International Day of Service around domestic and sexual violence awareness and prevention, tied to the NMB Live! festival weekend in late September, ahead of the October walk.
Sponsors, volunteers and how to give
The walk committee is still taking sponsors for 2026. Businesses and individuals can reach the club at info@northmyrtlebeachwomansclub.org or 843-206-5105. Anyone who cannot attend can give through the donate page at northmyrtlebeachwomansclub.org, which also handles the club’s other charitable work — a Thanksgiving meal partnership with the Lowcountry Food Bank in November and the 31st annual Christmas Candlelight Tour of Homes in December.
The North Myrtle Beach Woman’s Club joined the General Federation of Women’s Clubs in 1974 and remains affiliated with both the national federation and GFWC South Carolina. Anyone who needs help now, rather than in October, can reach the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233 or the Family Justice Center’s 24-hour line at 844-208-0161.
If you’re visiting that weekend
Mid-October is one of the better weeks to be on this coast. The water is still warm enough to wade, the crowds have thinned, and the sports complex sits ten to fifteen minutes from most of North Myrtle Beach’s rental corridors. Families staying in Cherry Grove or Ocean Drive can finish the walk and be back on the sand before lunch, and the drive is barely longer from Crescent Beach or Windy Hill. Visitors who want to fold the morning into a longer fall stay will find the best rates of the season on oceanfront homes and oceanfront condos after the summer season closes.
Event details, including start times and any weather-related changes, should be confirmed with the Woman’s Club before Oct. 17.
Planning to be here for the walk — or for the quiet stretch of fall that follows it? Thomas Beach Vacations has managed oceanfront homes and condos along the North Myrtle Beach coast since 1962, from Cherry Grove down through Windy Hill. Call (843) 273-3001 or browse availability at northmyrtlebeachvacations.com, and our team will match you with a place that fits your weekend.
Sources: GFWC North Myrtle Beach Woman’s Club event and donation pages; North Myrtle Beach Times coverage of the annual walk; Violence Policy Center, When Men Murder Women; Family Justice Center (Horry and Georgetown counties). Schedule and admission details reflect the club’s published 2026 promotional materials and are subject to change.