GREENHORN VALLEY
Since 1954, firefighters have raised money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) through the “Fill the Boot” campaign.
MDA’s spirited Fill the Boot campaign is an honored tradition in which thousands of dedicated fire fighters hit the streets or storefronts asking pedestrians, motorists, customers and other passersby to make a donation to MDA, using their collective stength to help kids and adults live longer and grow stronger.
Beginning Friday, September 1, and culminating on Labor Day, September 4, Rye Fire Protection District (RFPD) firefighters will be at Valley Market and the new Circle K at exit 74 collecting money for MDA. This is the first year RFPD will be participating in the event.
If you don’t get a chance to contribute those four days, you can always go online to the MDA website and make a donation.
Please notate you are donating in conjunction with the Rye Fire Protection District.
Paramedic Ross Gallegos, who works both in Rye and for Pueblo West, had much to do with getting RFPD onboard with the event. Gallegos has worked for the Pueblo West Fire Department through a dozen MDA campaigns, and believes in the work MDA does.
“I’m not much of a cryer,” Gallegos shared with me last Thursday evening. “But when you hear a couple from Colorado Springs share that their child is alive, sobbing as they told us, because of money collected by MDA, I had tears in my eyes.”
Gallegos, who has children of his own, shared that his children are healthy and blessed. But he continued. “Like most parents, we prayed that they would be born healthy with ten fingers and ten toes. Imagine if, because of an aberration to one single chromosome, they were born with a muscular or nervous system disease that altered their life forever? That’s why I have helped collect for the MDA and want Rye Fire to begin doing it annually, as well.”
Gallegos indicated that all money collected goes to the MDA. Some goes to research, some to issues of individuals with the disease and some goes to the MDA Summer Camps where children with muscular and nervous diseases, many in wheel chairs, get the opportunity to swing, hike, horseback ride, shoot bow and arrows, and a host of things the specialized staff assist them in doing, probably for the only time in their lives.
And firefighters are there as well. One day of the camp participating fire companies bring trucks to the camp and the children get to spray water, mess with the siren, and be part of the lives of their heroes.
There is a lot of competition among departments. One year, Pueblo West won an award for raising the most money per capita of any Colorado Fire Department. But Gallegos knows the competition is for fun and not the real reason.
“I told our guys, whether we raised $500 or $5000, it would be that much more money MDA didn’t have before to help the kids who face these tough diseases.”
The International Association of Fire Fighters has raised almost $600 million to help kids and adults with muscle-debilitating diseases.
The Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) is a nonprofit health agency that was founded in 1950. MDA is dedicated to curing muscular dystrophy, ALS and related diseases by funding worldwide research. The Association also provides comprehensive health care and support services, advocacy and education.
MDA combats neuromuscular diseases through programs of worldwide research, comprehensive medical and support services, and far-reaching professional and public health education. With national headquarters in Chicago, MDA has 88 local offices across the country, sponsors some 200 Care Centers and supports more than 300 research projects around the world.
MDA is the nation's largest nongovernmental funder of scientific research seeking better treatments and cures for the more than 40 neuromuscular diseases in its program. MDA has funded the discovery of the genetic underpinnings of almost all diseases in its program - including the muscular dystrophies, spinal muscular atrophy, ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease) and several other neuromuscular diseases - and treatments based on this knowledge are being developed, with support from MDA.
Gallegos summed it all up. “If it jingles, folds or swipes, it all counts. Please help us help those with these horrible diseases.”