For This Teamster, Walk MS is a Labor of Love
There was so little doctors could do about MS when Janine Vanier was diagnosed in 1987, her neurologist’s only advice was to buy long-term care insurance.
“That was scary,” said Vanier, of Alameda County, near San Francisco, who was then a single mother of two young children.
She realized progress was picking up 17 years later when she noticed she was the only one in her self-help group who wasn’t on a disease-modifying drug. She started taking one and hasn’t stopped.
“I thought if I don’t do anything, in five years I might be kicking myself around the block for not doing it. And if I do end up with worse disabilities, at least I know I tried to do something. If I was newly diagnosed, I would hop on it immediately,” she said.
Walk MS is another life-changing treatment that Vanier hopped on. Her team, the TeamMSters, has been so successful, she admits to thinking: "We’re incredible, I have to admit it. In 2005 we did $102,000. I couldn’t believe it.”
TeamMSters only has about three dozen members, but as their name suggests, they’re specialists in working together: Vanier is the executive assistant to Rome Aloise, the Secretary-Treasurer of Teamsters Local 853, which represents 14,000 Teamster workers in the Bay Area. Aloise gets donations from friends and associates nationwide.
“He always says, ‘I fund your charity of choice; now it’s your turn to send me something for my secretary’s walk,’” Vanier said. Nor has Aloise’s support been purely financial. Vanier fretted for years about whether to disclose her MS at work, finally coming clean when her dexterity and balance grew so shaky that people were keeping their distance, as if she were drunk.
“I told my boss and he’s been my guardian angel for the last 10 years. He said, ‘Whatever we can do for you, we’ll do. Don’t worry about a thing. You take care of yourself, and we’ll help you do that.’ And he has.”
Vanier’s daughter, Dawn, a former development officer for the Northern California Chapter, is Director of Alumni Relations for the engineering schools at the University of California, Berkeley; her son, Casey, is a paramedic. “He has stories!” Vanier said. “They’re wonderful kids. I’m very proud of them.”
One of Vanier’s favorite fundraising techniques in the past was going into stores and asking to leave some literature behind. She almost always met people with an MS connection. Now she volunteers at chapter events and is always ready to speak to groups and inviduals about MS.
“Once you know another person has MS, you develop these common bonds,” she said. “It’s really changed my life. Having MS has opened my eyes because of the opportunities that it’s given me, and feeling good knowing we are helping people. It’s very rewarding and inspirational.”