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Pancakes for a Cause
A drive to raise money, attention for Parkinson’s disease
Cctober 22, 2009

Since 2000, Greenville resident Deborah W. Brooks has worked for the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, initially as founding chief executive officer. Under her leadership until 2007, the foundation became the largest nonprofit funder of Parkinson’s disease research in the world. However, Brooks will soon welcome the chance to join other local residents and do some important fundraising right at home.

By flipping pancakes.  

Brooks, Cindy Wilkinson, Carroll Ivy Laurence and other Delawareans touched by Parkinson’s disease will host Pancakes for Parkinson’s on Nov. 7 at the Wilmington Riverfront Shipyard Shops. The pancake theme was launched by students at the University of Virginia several years ago as a way of honoring their family members who had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s, and has now become an annual event.

“It’s inspiring for me to important work for Parkinson’s disease in my own community, and to create a fun family-oriented gathering like this to serve as a catalyst get people talking about Parkinson’s disease,” Brooks said. “It’s a grassroots effort, and a way of connecting Delaware families to other Delaware families.”  

Today Brooks, who retains the title co-founder, works full-time for the New York City-based organization and telecommutes from Delaware. In her current capacity, Brooks spends nearly half of her job time on the road, fundraising and speaking. Most recently, she traveled to San Francisco, where she spoke with representatives from biotech and pharmaceutical companies about the possibility of joining a collaborative research partnership with the foundation.

Prior to joining the foundation, Brooks worked at the investment bank Goldman Sachs in New York, when she was introduced to Fox, then looking for someone to head a new organization he was thinking about starting that could raise money and awareness for Parkinson’s disease.

“Michael had the vision and the drive and the name, and he wanted someone to help him create an organization that would really move the dial,” Brooks said. “Working with Michael, I marvel at his particular brand of optimism and admire his grace as he faces this disease. It is clear that this isn’t a vanity exercise for him. He is a young man who has this disease and is committed to galvanizing society to understand more about it.”

For the hundreds of families expected to attend the Wilmington event, Brooks said she hopes they won’t just be enjoying the pancakes, but gaining awareness of a disease that has largely been misunderstood — one of the reasons Fox had for starting the foundation.

Parkinson’s is a neurodegenerative disorder of unknown cause that affects nearly 5 million individuals worldwide. While advancing age remains the greatest risk factor, Parkinson’s can strike people even under age 30, and further, the full spectrum of the disease is not well addressed by current treatments, which can only mask some symptoms as the underlying disease continues to worsen.

Due in part to the murky facts surrounding the disease, living with Parkinson’s can often heighten the feeling of isolation that too often accompanies a diagnosis. Laurence’s father told her and her sister Jackie about his condition on his 79th birthday. “He was very stoic and reserved,” Laurence said. “Seeing the degenerative aspects of the disease has been very difficult for him, but he doesn’t want people to worry about him.”Wilkinson’s father was diagnosed seven years ago but went more than four years before telling his four children. “My father didn’t want to be a burden to his kids,” Wilkinson said. “He said to us, ‘There’s nothing you can do to help me.’ That’s a huge reason we’re having this event, because there will be people there who have a shared desired to get involved.”

To date, the foundation has raised close to $150 million that has been directed toward accelerating the development of treatments. “We work to identify promising early stage ideas being worked on in academic labs,” she said. “Then we fund the high-risk translational research, in the hopes of building a drug development pipeline that can ultimately lead to new treatments to help those living with Parkinson’s.”

Recently, Wilkinson conducted an online search using the words “Parkinson’s Support Delaware.” “Nothing came up,” she said. “Hopefully, soon after the last pancake is flipped, served and eaten on Nov. 7, something will.”

Learn more about this great event at: http://de.pancakesforparkinsons.org