 |
| BW President Bob Helmer (right) and Alan Kolp, BW Chair in Faith and Life accept the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge at BW's Weekend of Welcome for freshmen students. Helmer challenged two BW vice presidents, along with Berea Mayor and BW alumnus Cyril Kleem - Photo by Da'Qeayce Swain '18 |
Mary Wilson Wheelock '96, serves as Executive Director for the ALS Association Northern Ohio Chapter that covers 32 counties including Cleveland, Akron, Toledo and Youngstown. She says the awareness and support generated by the challenge is "unprecedented, unfathomable, and downright incredible."
The BW chemistry major changed her career path when her mother was diagnosed with ALS a year into her graduate program. "I took a leave of absence from Notre Dame to return home to care for my mother. Wanting something to distract from the demands of caring for an ALS patient, I found an opportunity for an AmeriCorp VISTA volunteer in the BW Career Bulletin. I was placed with Cleveland Reads, and helped write one of the first locally funded America Reads grants. I spent my service year working on various fundraising projects, and...well...a development professional was born."
"I lost my mom to ALS in June 1999, and her dying wish was that the battle to defeat ALS not end with her," she continues. "I took that to heart and became an active volunteer with the local Chapter. In early 2011, the executive director position opened up, and I was fortunate to be selected. The job has been, like the Ice Bucket Challenge, a dream come true."
Wheelock says the response to the challenge, from people like her old BW chemistry professor and Associate Dean, Jim McCargar, to Dean of the BW Conservatory of Music, Susan Van Vorst, and many, many others is amazing, but "our fight against this disease won’t end this summer."
To direct an Ice Bucket Challenge gift to the Northern Ohio Chapter, or to one of its upcoming Walk to Defeat ALS events, visit www.alsaohio.org.
