Calia and her brothers, Andrew and Craig Lockwood, from New York and Massachusetts respectively, have come together at the one-year anniversary of their father's death to help raise money for the American Diabetes Association in honor of their father, Dean Lockwood-- a former leading diabetologist.

Calia is one of approximately 500 people walking in the first Silicon Valley Walk for Diabetes, part of the larger America's Walk for Diabetes. The walk will be held at Guadalupe River Park and Gardens in downtown San Jose on Oct. 15 from 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

This will be the first time the walk takes place in San Jose, says Nicole Sarabia, the ADA's marketing manager. "It will be an annual event and we will be keeping it in San Jose."

The sponsors of the event, which previously took place in Santa Cruz and Palo Alto, want to raise $100,000 for research and advocacy.

Calia's siblings will be walking Oct. 1 in Rochester, N.Y., and on Oct. 15 in Boston.

"We just wanted to come together for his one-year anniversary and let people know about him and the great person he was," Calia says.

"Both my grandparents had Type II diabetes and both died from it," Calia says. "So at an early age, my father decided to study the disease and try to find a cure."

One of Calia's brothers also has Type II diabetes.

The Calia and Lockwood families have put together a team for the walk in order to raise a combined total of $10,000. As of Oct. 3, the team had surpassed that goal and raised $11, 277.

Team Lockwood created a website where family and friends can go to read about their efforts, as well as make donations or pledges.

Each member of the family has his or her own goal and meter to show their progress. Calia's children, 8-year-old Paolo and 5-year-old Guiliana, both have goals of $350.

"We decided to empower the children in this fundraising campaign by buying a large amount of the highly desirable red wristbands with the ADA logo," Calia says.

She bought 20 youth and 20 adult sizes and was cleaned out in three days. "This is so hot to have these bracelets," she says. "We have gone through a couple hundred."

Along with the ADA logo, the bracelets also have the words "cure, care and commitment" on them.

"Lance Armstrong started this bracelet movement and as long as the proceeds go to nonprofits, it's a great way to gain support and get the kids interested," Calia says.

The children are offering them to friends at school, Brownies, Boy Scouts and soccer teams that donate $5.

"We go home and enter the donations online for the kids to watch their meter grow and the team meter grow," Calia says. "It's been good for them to see their little meter on the webpage grow."

Calia says educating both the youth and the public is crucial to the fight against the disease.

"I've met people at our school that have diabetes," Calia says. "Our children have learned about it. They saw their grandpa live with it. I think diabetes is something we can find a cure for to give people a chance for a longer, healthier life."

According to the ADA, 18.2 million people in the United States have diabetes. In Santa Clara County alone, there are 140,000 people with the disease.

It is the fifth deadliest disease in America, killing more people each year than AIDS and breast cancer combined.

"Everyone has someone who knows someone with diabetes," Calia says.

Everyone she has talked to about her family's efforts has been supportive and receptive.

"People have come up to me and said, "My dad, grandfather, brother or sister had diabetes," Calia says. "Everywhere we turn, there's someone who has it."

Although this will be the first walk the Calia family has done, Calia has been active in fundraisers and benefits throughout her life.

"As a child, there used to be a bike-a-thon in New York instead of a walk for diabetes every year and we would do it with our dad," Calia says.

The senior Lockwood also gave lectures as an invited speaker or visiting professor at different conferences around the nation and the world. Between 1986 and 1991, he attended 50 conferences on the disease.

"When I was growing up, he gave lectures every year," she says. "Each year he would take one of his kids with him. My first trip with him was while I was in the ninth grade. It was my first time to San Francisco."

Although she was unable to comprehend all that was going on around her father, Calia says she enjoyed the time she spent with her father.

"In hindsight, I'm really proud of him," she says. "Now it all makes sense."

Along with his lectures, Lockwood initiated the Obesity Clinic at the University of Rochester Medical Center in NewYork and organized and opened the Lockwood Library for Endocrine Research at the University of Rochester.

He also helped to develop new medications to cope with the complications of diabetes.

Lockwood was the United States Olympic Swim Team physician for the Montreal Olympics in 1976. From 1982-84, he was the personal physician to the president of Taiwan and in 1987, he walked the entire length of Erie Canal from Tonawanda, N.Y., to the Hudson River. Lockwood also wrote a vast number of scientific articles on diabetes and endocrinology.

He donated his time to the American Diabetes Association board of directors, the Health Research Council of New York and Diabetes Complications Commission of the National Institutes of Health, Washington, D.C.

Lockwood battled the disease for more than 20 years. In the early 1980s, he had a stroke that forced him to retire.

He died of complications from diabetes in November 2004 at the age of 67.

For further information on the Team Lockwood fundraising effort to find a cure for diabetes, visit http://main.diabetes. org/site/TR?pg=team&fr_id=2926&team_id=99278.

For information about the Oct. 15 walk in San Jose, visit www.diabetes.org.