LSVT Global, a provider of innovative speech treatment for people with Parkinson’s disease just announced a new online training program for clinicians. The hope is that by making the training more accessible for clinicians, the LSVT Loud treatment will be available to more people with speech disorders. Want to learn more? Click here.
We’ve processed and recorded all donations to the 2010 Parkinson’s Unity Walk and would like to announce that Joe Narciso of JOE TEAM!!! is this year’s top fundraiser who is not a team captain. Joe personaly raised $10,565 and this was his team’s first year at the Unity Walk! We can only imagine what Joe will be able to do next year now that he is an experienced fundraiser for the Walk. Congratulations to Joe!
It takes a community to raise over $1.5M for the Unity Walk and every dollar counts! 17,344 donations were made to get us to that number. One quarter of those donations were less than $100 and one half of them were below $200. That is a lot of individual donors giving what they can and it all adds up to a significant sum for research.
Looking for new fundraising ideas? Check our Shining Star Events to see how other PUW participants have raised money for Parkinson’s research. Share your ideas on our blog.
Thank you for your efforts to raise funds for much needed research for Parkinson’s disease.
All the best from the PUW Staff
The checks have been entered, the online donations are processed and the count is in! The Team Captain of the Top Fundraising Team is Jim McNasby of Team McMoss. Team McMoss raised $49,531 for the 2010 PUW. Congratulations to Jim! We are grateful for his team’s extraordinary efforts on behalf of the Parkinson’s Unity Walk and his commitment to raising funds for Parkinson’s research.
We appreciate the efforts of all our participants and donors and want to especially acknowledge the Top 50 Teams for the 2010 Unity Walk. Nine of the top fifty teams were new to the Walk this year. What an awesome accomplishment their first year out! If you exclude the new teams, two-thirds of the remaining top fifty teams increased the amount of money they raised from the previous year – some of them increased the amount of money they raised up to three times from last year.
We are grateful to all our participants and donors for coming together as a community to raise much needed funds for Parkinson’s research.
Looking for new fundraising ideas? Check our Shining Star Events to see how other PUW participants have raised money for Parkinson’s research. Share your ideas on our blog.
All the best from the PUW Staff
As you have all been enjoying your summer, we have started to plan for the 2011 Parkinson’s Unity Walk. While the date for the 2011 Unity Walk is not yet confirmed, our website is up and running and you can now register online for next year’s Walk. We are planning on a Saturday in April and will post the date as soon as we receive confirmation from Central Park.
Our website is very similar to last year but we have made some changes. You spoke and we listened! Based on the feedback our our participants, we decided to return to the online donation process we used in 2009. We hope you find this more user friendly and easier to navigate for you and your donors.
We will be providing our participants with Boundless Fundraising, an additional tool to raise funds. By adding this application to your Facebook page, you can easily extend your fundraising efforts to your network of friends on Facebook. Details to follow soon.
The PUW Staff
The New York Times reported last week that the Parkinson’s community is learning from the recent success of an unprecedented collaborative approach to Alzheimer’s research. The approach is serving as a model for similar efforts against Parkinson’s disease. We applaud the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research for spearheading this initiative. Click here for more information. Feel free to share your thoughts and reactions to this news on our blog.
The 2010 PUW was a huge success. There was a tremendous sense of community created at the Walk; people with Parkinson’s disease benefited from speaking to representatives from PD organizations and our sponsors; people were empowered by the commitment demonstrated by so many people who came together to raise funds to find a cure for Parkinson’s disease; the weather was glorious; and we exceeded our fundraising efforts from the previous year. The total amount of money raised from the 2010 Walk is $1,531,790. We continue the commitment that was made at the first Unity Walk that all donations go directly to PD research. We could not have accomplished this extraordinary result without your support.
It’s hard to imagine but we already planning for next year’s Unity Walk. We will share fundraising ideas and updates with you throughout the year and look forward to hearing from you about your fundraising efforts.
We plan on using our website to highlight more information about the participants and teams that comprise the Walk. Please get in touch with our office if you’d like to share information about your experience at the Walk. You can either prepare your own write up or if you prefer, give us a call. We will gladly interview you about your experience and then write it up for posting on our website.
Registration for the 2011 Unity Walk will be available online later in the summer. In the interim, you will still be able to make a general donation online.
Thank you to each and every one of you for all you did to make this year’s Unity Walk as successful as it was.
With gratitude,
The PUW Staff
This is a good time for all PUW participants to save your 2010 donor information by exporting it into an Excel spreadsheet. You may want to use this information to send your thank you notes for this year’s Walk or refer back to it when you begin your fundraising for 2011.
It’s simple! Just follow these easy steps:
Click on Walker Log In on our website.
Scroll down and click on View All Donations.
Click on Export Donors to Excel.
Click on Open File.
Save the File on your computer.
Please do this by June 11th. Our website for the 2010 Unity Walk will be shutting down shortly after that date. Once that happens, you will no longer have access to your donor information on our website. If you did not save a list of your donors and their contact information, you are always welcome to call our office and we will gladly provide you with that information.
Thanks!
This was my first year as the Event Director of the Parkinson’s Unity Walk and it was a satisfying experience to see it all come together just as members of the PUW staff told me it would. There are so many aspects of the Walk that made an impression on me but what I found most inspiring were the people I met and the sense of community we all shared that day.
Everyone at the Unity Walk is there for a reason and has there own personal connection to this disease. Whether you are a person living with Parkinson’s; walked in honor or in memory of a friend or relative; walked on your own, with a friend or as part of a large team; or if this is your first Unity Walk or your sixteenth – we want to hear from you!
Sharing your experiences with one another will remind you that you are part of a strong, committed and caring community that advocates for and funds research to cure Parkinson’s disease. You may want to write about what motivated you to participate in the Unity Walk; the person you walked in honor or memory of; your experience fundraising and reaching out to family, friends and neighbors; your experience the day of the Walk itself; or your reflections on the Walk.
Please help us keep the spirit of the day of the Unity Walk alive by sharing your personal experiences for us to post on the Shining Stars section of our website. Please email them to us at info@unitywalk.org. If you would rather have us interview you and write the piece for the website, we are glad to do that as well. You are welcome to include photos along with your experiences.
Helaine Isaacs
Event Director
The photos from the 2010 Parkinson’s Unity Walk are up on our website! Please take a few moments to check them out. It will bring you back to the day’s bright sunshine and blue skies as well as the strong sense of hope, spirit and community that was experienced that day. Our photographers captured many terrific shots of our corporate sponsors, representatives from the PD foundations, program speakers, individual participants, teams and volunteers. They are included on our website under “Photos and Stories”. See if you can find candid shots of you and members of your team. All the team photos are also included.
We will be sending out copies of the team photos shortly via mail or email, depending on the request you made on the day of the Walk. If you did not previously request that we send you a copy of your team photo but would now like one, please contact our office. We will gladly take care of that.
Warm regards,
PUW Staff
Many donations were made at the Unity Walk in Central Park and donations continue to come in on a daily basis, both online and in the mail. Donations received by June 1, 2010 will still be credited to the 2010 Unity Walk. It is not too late to reach out to your friends, family and colleagues in case they meant to make a donation but didn’t get to it before the Walk.
There are many measures of the Unity Walk’s success. How much money we raised is one of them and we will have a final total by late June. We are well on our way to reaching or surpassing last year’s total of $1.5M. Some other interesting statistics comparing this year to 2009:
* The number of registered walkers is up 21%.
* The number of registered teams is up 25%.
* The number of unique visitors to our website is up 76%.
Another measure of the Unity Walk’s success is something you can’t quantify – the energy and commitment of the Parkinson’s disease community that is evident in Central Park the day of the Walk. It is that energy and commitment that increases the other quantifiable results. Thank you for all your support of our efforts to raise funds for research!
The PUW Staff
