Jackals Annual Report

The pattern is predictable: Every November I get impatient waiting for the official Walk to D’Feet ALS tallies, and I go ahead and write my report. How can I pass up an occasion as appropriate as Thanksgiving? Maybe if I didn’t have good news to report – but thanks to you, I always do.

Each year the Jackals set a new record, only to surpass it the following year. For 2007 our goal was $30K. We reached it well before the walk and kept right on going. As of today, our team total is an astounding $44,631. (Last year, for reference, the figure was $39,108.)

For those of you who couldn’t be there in person, Walk Day was perfect – not a term I use lightly. The weather was warm and sunny, the mood equally so. First-timers are invariably amazed by what a cheerful occasion it is. Many of them become regulars, and so the Jackals grow. We also have an incentive that no other team can offer: the postwalk brunch at Jane and Barney Finn’s, which has become as much a tradition as the walk itself. (Truth be told, it’s probably the real draw.)

I’ve described ALS as a family disease, and the same is true of this event. The Jackals wouldn’t be so successful without our strong tribal network. Besides my family, Dan’s, and the Finns, there is Kay Adler, a fundraising force of nature. She and her mother, Karel, set a high standard for everyone else, and it works beautifully. Then there’s Caroline Stopyra, who not only drove up from North Carolina for the walk, she returned the following week to run the Marine Corps Marathon, also to benefit the Jackals. Her mother, Claudette, provided our team T-shirts for the fourth (!) time – a big hit this year in lavender. And of course, the Jackals themselves are a family, with some of the same people walking for eight years now and new ones always joining.

When you consider all that, it’s not so surprising that I’m still skulking around nearly 11 years after that onerous diagnosis. Thank you so much for supporting me and everyone else served by the ALS Association. May you have as much reason for gratitude this Thanksgiving as I do.