Mar 11, 2009
Long-time Participant Walked For Years Raising Money By Collecting Cans on Highways And Walking For Everyone Else; Until One Day She Discovered She Would Be Walking For Herself Too
Beth Norviel
Long-time Participant Walked For Years Raising Money By Collecting Cans on Highways And Walking For Everyone Else; Until One Day She Discovered She Would Be Walking For Herself Too
Before throwing your next canned soft drink into the trash or recycle bin, try giving it to long-time Dean Team Automotive Challenge Walk MS participant, Sheila Kamer. By walking the highways and byways collecting cans, Sheila was able to raise $500 for the National MS Society Gateway Area Chapter-an organization that helps people living Multiple Sclerosis-in their 2002 Inaugural Challenge Walk. She wanted to do something to support her two closest friends and niece who were fighting the disease and has walked every year since, until in 2005 she too was diagnosed with MS and discovered she would be walking for herself as well. Kamer has continued to walk every year since and will be walking in the upcoming 2009 Dean Team Automotive Challenge Walk MS, to be held on May 29-31st at various St. Louis metro locations. While the disease has now made it more difficult for her to walk to collect cans along the highways, her employer has allowed her to keep a collection box near her desk which has put her close to achieving her $1500 goal.
“Although the country is in the midst of tough economic times,” said Kamer, “each and every one of us can make a difference. Don’t have cash, donate your time to help out before the walk by stuffing mailings, making phone calls…. you can even save the aluminum cans otherwise thrown away at your home, school, office or dropped in the road and cash them to be donated to the cause.”
While the annual National MS Gateway Area Chapter Challenge Walk gives Sheila hope that a cure will be found some day, she believes it is important for people that do not have MS to know what it is like to live with the disease in order to get more to join the fight for a cure.
“Put a patch over one eye and bind your ankles with a belt to keep them six inches apart and with your arms at your side, try to move through your day at a normal pace for an entire week,” said Kamer when asked how she would describe living with the disease to someone unfamiliar with it.