Parkinson's Unity Walk Profile of the Month:
Margot Zobel, Founder and Director

The founding leader of the Parkinson's Unity Walk, Margot Zobel, comes from a background of activism and leadership. In her youth, Margot and her family came to the United States from Germany via South America. She excelled in her new home country and eventually traveled to New York City to study at Barnard College. Later, as a young mother in the New York
metropolitan area, she became dissatisfied with the educational system available for her daughter and with a group of similarly minded people established a school that led to a commune-like organization. She has never given up fighting for causes in which she believes. It infuriates her when she hears people taking a status quo "you can't fight City Hall" view toward life. She feels that if no one fights, nothing will change, and if you are not willing to stand up and fight for what you believe in, why should you expect others to do so? It is this strong fighting spirit that led Margot to co-found the Parkinson's Unity Walk with Ken Aidekman. Although she has turned over most day-to-day activities to her fellow volunteer staff in recent years, her indefatigable spirit continues to pervade every aspect of the Walk.

At age 50, after reluctantly acknowledging she was experiencing a loss of dexterity she could not explain, Margot received the unimaginable diagnosis of Parkinson's disease. She quickly decided to take a proactive approach to the disease, learning as much as possible about Parkinson's, so that she could better combat the disease and its debilitating effects. Beyond just consulting with her doctors, she joined - and quickly became the leader of - a patient support group.

As she immersed herself in fighting the disease, Margot wondered why there seemed to be walks for so many other causes, but not for Parkinson's. When she first posed the idea for a Walk to her Parkinson's support group and others, she was greeted by the typical retort of "Parkinson's patients don't walk." Surprised, but not discouraged, she decided to start a Walk herself, "whether two people or 200" showed up. After meeting Ken Aidekman at the 1994 Parkinson's Action Network Public Advocacy Forum in Washington, D.C., she informed him of her plans to stage a walk in New York City. Later that same year, drawing on her background in activism, public relations and with the help of like-minded supporters, the first Walk, was called "The Walk Along the Park". The Walk took place with about 200 participants and more than $16,000 in funds raised.

For many years, Margot had been running her own successful business, Skyline Creative Business Services, which had such high-profile clients as the New York Stock Exchange and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. However, she found that she was dedicating more and more of her time to the Walk and she soon made the decision to devote her efforts to it on a full-time basis. As many participants in the Walk may know, for a number of years Margot utilized her New York City apartment on the Upper West side of Manhattan as a base of operations for the event. Due to the great commitment of Margot, the volunteer staff, and the many thousands of walkers, the Walk outgrew her apartment and it is now managed from an office in a separate location.

The PUW's power to bring together diverse people from all walks of life has left a profound impression on Margot. Although her life would be indescribably easier without having to battle Parkinson's every day, she feels fortunate that her involvement with the Walk has given her the opportunity to meet many wonderful, talented and dedicated people who have enriched and changed her life. Now that Margot has left the Walk in the capable hands of its dedicated volunteers and staff, she hopes to find more time for her writing and for friends and family.

Margot's two main tenets for the Walk's past, present and future, are that generous donations must go directly to research and that the Walk should be an umbrella fundraiser from which not one, but several different Parkinson's research organizations can benefit. It was Margot Zobel and Ken Aidekman who provided one of the first examples of organizations joining together to raise money for research.

While she hopes that the Walk will grow in awareness, she has a strong two-fold belief: that funds raised, along with greater awareness of the disease, will be the key to discovering a cure and that the growth of the Internet has and will continue to be a major factor in uniting people affected by Parkinson's. Reflecting on the progress of the Walk, she notes that while it is heartwarming to watch people join forces to raise money, she is most touched by the "uplifting feeling the Walk creates, as people come together in a positive spirit with the hope of a cure."

In October of 2002, Margot became a pioneer yet again, as she had successful deep brain stimulation surgery (DBS) to help alleviate some of her Parkinson's symptoms. Margot's own column, "Tributes to Margot," is featured on the Parkinson's Unity Walk Website.