The report from a fortune teller or e-astrology website below, reveals some truths about me.

It so happens that my Parkinson’s Disease is deteriorating rapidly, with much frequent falls due to increasing instability, to the tune of one or more per day. Hence my well-being becomes an easy to understand statistic. I.e. one of these days I’m going to get hurt, either to the magnitude of becoming hospitalized from a broken hip bone, or worse to hurt my head so much or strongly, that I may become a vegetable or at the worst case scénario, to depart from this vain world of #pandemic or #covid19.

Let’s get to the point …

The first vow or resolution which I made for 2022, involved the desire to support in any way possible, a non-profit.org for fund raising and other involvements having to do with Parkinson’s Disease. In case that it would combine one of my favorite hobby, ie. #ClassicCarEvents, such would be quite rewarding to me🙏

I do believe that sharing one’s concerns with good friends, often proves beneficial…

The rest is history…
As such I posted via Messenger the following to two of my closest car guy buddies [Alex_V & Myron Vernis] whereby the reply from Myron filled me with joy and unlocked my creativity with cosmic results 👌

Byron, Small world! I’ve been talking to Deb Pollack – Founder, who runs this charity, about doing an event in Greece. She is very enthusiastic and open to ideas. She even suggested a Greek beneficiary organization, the Mediterraneo Hospital for Parkinson’s and Movement Disorders in Athens. What do you think?

And my reply to him on St. John’s day:
High dear Myron/Steven 💝 No problem 😉 I love cosmic coincidences of the type u described 🙏 I do know Mediterrano, and a good friend cum aficionado works there. @Alex knows him well, Yannis XYNOGALAS. It’s St. John’s nameday so I was going to call him anyway. Great news 👍 let’s go for it…

So there you have it👌 Please get in touch with me at your earliest convenience to discuss this further and get the wheels spinning for the New Year 2022 👏🔜🇬🇷🇺🇸
Das Beste 👌✅😃
Byron

On Wednesday 12 January 2022, I visited Méditerraneo, for my personal needs and through the excellent services o Yannis, I had a 2+ hour session with Dr. Pantelis G. Stathis, Director of the Neurology Department and the Center for Parkinson’s disease. As we were wrapping up our meeting I did mention about the second topic of my visit!

The good Doctor didn’t need more than a minute to fully grasp the proposal for organizing a Fundraising Event with our Classic Cars 🙏👍👌🏁

Not only but he added: “Did you know that our hospital and my department have an association with The Michael J. Fox Organization” …which was music to my ears 👏

As the world’s largest nonprofit funder of Parkinson’s Disease research, The Michael J. Fox Foundation is dedicated to accelerating a cure for Parkinson’s disease and improved therapies for those living with the condition today. The Foundation pursues its goals through an aggressively funded, highly targeted research program coupled with active global engagement of scientists, Parkinson’s patients, business leaders, clinical trial participants, donors and volunteers.

In addition to funding more than $1 Billion in research to date, the Foundation has fundamentally altered the trajectory of progress toward a cure.

Operating at the hub of worldwide Parkinson’s research, the Foundation forges groundbreaking collaborations with industry leaders, academic scientists and government research funders; increases the flow of participants into Parkinson’s disease clinical trials with its online tool, Fox Trial Finder; promotes Parkinson’s awareness through high-profile advocacy, events and outreach; and coordinates the grassroots involvement of thousands of Team Fox members around the world. For more information, visit The Michael J. Fox Foundation on the Web, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.Continuing he also suggested to take immediate contact with their Marketing Department and also to look up their program for Medical Tourism!

Bingo 👌‼️ Couldn’t have asked for more……

Let’s wrap it up for the time being

What is absolutely lovely 🥰 and satisfying to see, is the reply which we received from Deb:

Hi Byron!!! I was so pleased to make your connection, and yes, had previously held a lovely conversation with Myron who is a very big fan of you and your friendship 😊 – he filled me in on much and we spoke about potential opportunities to raise some dollars and specifically use them to support a local Athens Parkinsons mobility clinic – I did some research with our CPA and was able to confirm we could in fact raise dollars and donate abroad, so I’m excited to see how we might best move things forward…

A very small world that you were able to view our ‘Conversations for a Cause’ – we worked with Alexander to create this engaging and visual opportunity to spread the word – and in fact have a full section on our website to view all the videos we created: https://www.drivetowardacure.org/conversations-for-a-cause-2020/ we were able to achieve these during Covid when we were unable to create gathering type of programs, so it was a creative and successful venture for us – and we provided those funds to the local north eastern Parkinson centers of excellence in both NY and Boston areas.

I’m sorry to hear your falls are increasing – not sure if Myron mentioned to you but aside from my alignment within the car community due to my career as a publicist in luxury automotive, I had also lost my mom to the challenges of the disease. My heart lies with those that face daily challenges, and while we do raise funds and give money to research organizations like the global Michael J Fox Foundation, I’m encouraged by the individual centers of excellence and work hard to provide funds that can support different areas of patient care. We’ve not yet done our taxes for 2021, but through 2020 we’ve raised more than $824K in charitable income and have expanded our own efforts to include both a ‘Special Assistance Fund’ for Parkinson patients that have experienced difficulties due to catastrophic events (hurricane, fires, tornadoes) and apply to us for assistance – as well as our ‘Access to Care’ fund which supports specific programs for regional Parkinson Foundation Centers of Excellence throughout the country – we are currently underwriting a ‘Caregiver Academy’ in the Northwest with funds we’ve raised on various car rallies in the Portland area and Seattle areas.

I very much would like to stay in touch with both you and Myron and determine the best way we can team, promote and raise funds – and to specifically assist in areas that are close to you.

Please take good care and especially stay healthy. So happy to have a new ‘pen pal!’

My Best,
Deb

Therefore, we can’t resist in supporting the www.drivetowardacure.org

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The Team

Deb Pollack – Founder

Read her story here: About Deb Pollack
However, she is also a philanthropist at heart. For the past decade Deb has advocated the ability to team cars and camaraderie together to open channels within the automotive industry that support the challenges of Parkinson’s disease – and has become the founder of Drive Toward a Cure (www.drivetowardacure.org), an all-new non-profit alternative to the numerous ‘for profit’ rally driving programs, creating events to raise funds to benefit Parkinson’s Disease.
Visit Deb online… Twitter: @corsaprgal, Instagram: @corsaprgal, and www.corsaprgal.com.
Contact Deb at deb@drivetowardacure.org or (805) 320-9248 (Los Angeles).

Mark Davidson – Partner, Branding & Marketing
Nigel Evans – Event Planning & Logistics
Derek Torry – Board Member
Kevin Heimbaugh – Board Member

Get In Touch

Use our Contact Form to send a message.
You can also email info@drivetowardacure.org, call Deb at (805) 320-9248(Los Angeles), or Mark at (905) 820-3189 (Toronto).

In case that anyone would like to become a volunteer in organizing such an Event, please get in touch via the contact info form here below 👇