“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” –The Lorax, Dr. Seuss
Going for Ten Thousand (GF10k) started in January 2010 by University of Wisconsin junior Becky Hall. It started as her personal goal to raise $10,000 for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society- Wisconsin Chapter’s annual MS150 Bike Tour. Today, GF10k is about fighting for the 10,000 people in Wisconsin fighting MS. To date, we have raised nearly $40,000. It’s become a movement.
In Becky’s words-
“For the last ten years, I’ve spent the first weekend of August at the MS150 Best Dam Bike Tour. I ride for my mom. Doctors diagnosed her with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) in 2000. Today, she’s doing well. She has her rough patches, but that woman’s a fighter. When she’s hurting, you’ll never know. I ride so someday she may not have MS.
MS attacks your Central Nervous System. Every person is affected with different symptoms at a different rate. It’s nearly impossible to predict what path my mom’s MS will take. That scares me. During the MS150, participants ride their bikes from Waukesha to Madison to advocate for the disease and fundraise for research. The first weekend of August, the weekend we ride, is the most important two days of my year.
My family rides with Charlie’s MS Angels, a team started by Peggy Siewert whose husband Charlie was diagnosed with MS in 1996. On January 22, Charlie died. The Siewerts are amazing people, and they were the first family that we really got close to within the “MS world.” Charlie was sick four years longer than my mom. Only four years. That really scares me.
In December 2010, I visited Charlie in hospice care. While there, Peggy jokingly challenged me to raise $10,000, the amount she raises. First I laughed and then I made it my goal. It was almost ten times as much as I had raised before, but I like to go big. In my tenth year, my goal was to raise ten thousand dollars for Charlie, for my mom, and for a cure.
I contacted every person I knew and a lot people I didn’t really know, and the responses amazed me. With a whole lot of help, I raised over $22,000 in sixth months. I received almost $5,000 in personal donations. I worked with my clubs and teams at my high school. The girls’ soccer program raised over$8,000. My project won a Pepsi Refresh Grant for $5,000. It was an amazing, crazy experience.”
Becky and her mom, Jane
Questions? Email goingfortenthousand@gmail.com.
