LEWISTON – Nearly 1,000 people took park in Sunday’s American Heart Association’s Maine Heart Walk.

Rumford Hospital also organized a satellite walk with 200 participants.

“We hope to raise $167,000. We already have over $120,000 but expect that number to grow throughout the week from participants who haven’t yet collected pledged contributions,” said AHA Maine Communications Director Brenda Quinn later Sunday.

Friends and relatives of people with heart disease organized fundraising teams for the walk. Some teams wore T-shirts memorializing loved ones. Institutional sponsors, including Central Maine Medical Center, Androscoggin Bank and Schooner Estates Retirement Community, also contributed.

The Heart Walk is critical to AHA funding research.

“There is always a critical gap between scientists’ inventions and the money we have to fund them. The next big discovery could be in their hands. Things we take for granted today were developed with AHA research dollars,” Quinn said.