Thank you us helping our reach my fundraising goal! Our team, Strolling for Sandra, has been attending this Walk for nearly 15 years. In that time, we have raised nearly $100,000. This year, as a team, we hope to raise an additional $10,000. With your help, I have no doubt that we can reach this. Don't forget to share this page with as many people as you can. If more people see it, then more people that can donate and we will come ever closer to finding a cure for ALS.
I would also appreciate it if you would consider walking with us at the Twin Cities Walk to Defeat ALS on Saturday, September 15th. Check-in starts at 8:00 am and the walk will start at 10:00 am. The actual walk is about 3 miles and it takes place at Lake Phalen Regional Park. If you donate or raise over $75 before or on the day of the walk, you will receive a t-shirt. With your help, we will be able to make a difference in the lives of people affected by this ALS. I really encourage you get your friends, family, neighbors, and even coworkers involved. With the help of all of these people, I am sure that we can reach my fundraising goal of $10,000 and hopefully we can find a cure for ALS.
My name is Abby Brachio and I have been the captain of this team for the last four years. The reason I am so passionate about finding a cure for ALS is because my grandmother had this fatal disease. My grandmother, Sandra Gaffney, had ALS for 30 years. This is especially incredible because the average life expectancy of an ALS patient is only 2 to 5 years. Despite being handicapped for most of this time, my grandma remained fiercely independent and determined. I have never met anybody who was as resilient as my grandma. She lived her life knowing how bad her condition was, but this never stopped her. Every single time I saw her, she was happy.
As a kid, every single Saturday morning my mother, sister, and I would visit my grandma in her nursing home. Each time, we knew it could be the last time we saw her. Despite this fact, she made every visit fun. We weren't scared of her passing, we knew that she would hold on until the next week. She was always happy to see us. Her face would light up as she watched my sister, Lily, and I play with the toys, games, and books she had for us. Saturday mornings with my grandma are still some of the happiest memories I have from being a young child. I can still picture her room and recite some of the books that we used to read to her.
The only time that her smile would fade, was towards the end. All of us had a feeling that my grandma was fading away from us. One of her favorite things to do in the summer was go to the state fair, my mother and aunt took her. When they got back, they both had a feeling that this was going to be the last time that they saw their mother on the fairgrounds. They sam thing happened around the holidays. Everybody had a sense that that year would be the last time we would see her sitting in our kitchen helping my mom with Thanksgiving dinner. Again at Christmas, we all sort of knew it was her last.
Her smile came back that January when my cousin Caleb, who is 6 know, was born. She was so excited to meet him. Her smile was maybe the biggest I had ever seen in the photos of her holding him for the first time. My aunt could now join us on our weekly trip to bring the grandchildren to the nursing home to see our Grandma.
There isn't much more that I can say about my grandma. She had this way about her that made everybody around her happy and hopeful. Not once did anybody, except for doctors, question whether or not she was going to make it another day. She had, and still has, an effect on everybody she met, and even some that she didn't meet. Without her, I would not be the determined, feisty, and independent person that I am today. She has forever changed my life in ways that I can not even describe. Every minute with her felt the same as spending weeks with other people.
Every 90 minutes a person in this country is diagnosed with ALS and every 90 minutes another person will lose their battle against this disease, and as much as I appreciate what my grandmother gave me, I would never wish it on anybody else. I can not imagine what it must have been like for her to live with a disease like ALS. All of the money that gets donated will go to help better the lives of those living with ALS, and hopefully to help find a cure.
