RENO (KOLO) -- It's estimated thousands walked the UNR campus Sunday morning to raise money for the Juveniles Diabetes Research Foundation. KOLO Eight News Now is a proud sponsor of the event.

"I'm just like a normal kid, I just have to like give shots and have sugar sometimes," 11-year-old Hunter Pitts, who has diabetes, said.

This is the sixth year Hunter's family and friends teamed up to raise money for JDRF. Hunter's family knows the toll diabetes takes firsthand.

"He is connected a hundred percent of the time to a machine that really keeps him alive, it delivers his insulin without it he would be in trouble within a day or so," Traci Pitts, Hunter's mother, said.

Many braved frigid conditions and a temperature around the freezing mark to help people like Hunter. People dressed with hoods and scarves to stay warm, all to battle a disease that affects so many.

"It's affected all my mom's side of the family, I've had loved-ones pass on because of diabetes," one participant in the walk said.

It's a condition that requires near constant monitoring, but one Hunter wants other kids to know won't hold him back.

"It doesn't like affect me that much, like they can't get it no mater what being around me or anything and I'm just like a normal kid."

At deadline there was no total available on how much was raised.

WebMD estimates about six percent of Americans suffer from diabetes.