Some studies suggest that military veterans are about 1.5 to 2 times more likely to develop ALS. ALS is recognized as a service-connected disease by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
When Doug was first diagnosed, he told me that we were not going to talk about this to anyone. He really felt that this was not a correct diagnosis and he didn't want to deal with the fall out of telling anyone and possibly the realization of what the future would hold. Well, what we have realized is that this "orphan disease" has very little funding - money that is critical for the life saving research needed to come up with an accurate diagnostic test; effective life changing treatments and ultimately a cure. Once Doug understood the power in sharing his story, he has openingly talked to anyone who has asked.
As we planned this ride, we knew our mission was two fold. Namely, creating greater awareness of this terrible disease called ALS and raising money to fund a cure. Those of you who know me, know that I am not shy in asking for donations to organizations that I am passionate about. My feeling has always been, if people want to give they will and if they don't, that's totally fine. We are not keeping score! In order to accomplish these goals, we wanted to create a buzz through the media - social media, news media, print media etc! We really didn't have much of a plan but through networking and sharing, our story has taken off and the donations are coming in faster than we can write a thank you note. We truly feel so blessed. Dave Foster, the ride organizer was a bit shocked when I told him we needed to increase his starting goal of $25K to $50K. Well, we have now increased this goal to $75K and with the success of sharing of our story, we feel we may have to increase it once again. A nice problem to have.
Here are a few of the stories being shared if you haven't seen them yet!
We do hope to update this blog regularly along the route, but you can also follow us on Instagram: oxfordtoboxford and Facebook Events: https://www.facebook.com/events/637641797834491?acontext=%7B%22event_action_history%22%3A[%7B%22mechanism%22%3A%22your_upcoming_events_unit%22%2C%22surface%22%3A%22bookmark%22%7D]%2C%22ref_notif_type%22%3Anull%7D
Feel free to share any of these as we continue to get the word out!
Captain Dave sporting our riding jerseys!!!
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