I would like to take this opportunity to personally thank everyone that supported UnCorked Adventures in 2018. The board and I are humbled and thankful for not just your incredible generosity, but your enthusiasm, continued encouragement and belief in our organization and mission.
Our mission @UnCorked is not to build another stand-alone organization, but rather to support and bring people and organizations together, helping people with Parkinson’s Disease make the most out of life, while we work together to find a cure.
I’m really excited and looking forward to what’s ahead of us in 2019, but I would be remiss if we didn’t a quick glance into the mirror of 2018 to help provide some needed context.
In 2018 we made incredible progress towards our objectives:
On January 31st, I Completed my walk across America reaching 10’s of millions of people, creating incredible awareness of Parkinson’s disease.
We also began working with leading scientists, clinicians and industry leaders to pilot (in 2019), a participant focused, goal based, wellness program that intends to take the best of all worlds and provide a customized value proposition to people with Parkinson’s. We expect this program will facilitate participation and engagement in a participant specific, personalized wellness regime, that is designed to meaningfully improve its participants way of life. This is very exciting!
Also in 2018 we were honored to receive a grant from the Parkinson’s Foundation to help with the aforementioned program and we will be announcing all the program details soon, so please stay tuned.
Thanks to the incredible support of all of you, in 2018 we were able to donate $40k (From over 200 individual donors) to the Michael J. Fox Foundation, $10k of which was matched, for a combined donation of $50k. We are very proud of our continued partnership with the Foundation, the seeds of which are starting to bear great potential fruit for everyone living with Parkinson’s.
On a more personal note, I continue to experience the increasing effects of he disease, but I am resolve to continue to focus on the positive aspects that I can control. This is where exercise comes in and underlies why I continue to push my own boundaries by taking on all these crazy new adventures.
First and foremost, I am certain that continual exercise has had a very positive effect to slow the progression of the disease in my case. If I could emphasize anything for the Parkinson’s community , this would be it. If you’re living with Parkinson’s, my recommendation would be to seek to find a safe and repeatable way to exercise, that works for your own personal situation. I strongly believe this is one of the most important things you can do, to help manage the way you are living with the disease. I can’t emphasize this enough.
To embody this philosophy, as of this writing, I am training for a 103 km race in the mountains of Hong Kong, which I will be competing in, on January 19th, 2019. There is a very high probability that I won’t be able to finish in the allotted time, due to intensity of the course, the limitations I experience from the disease and some knee issues, but the training program and even the race itself keep me exercising, daily, which I feel helps my symptoms and has been working well for me.
I plan to continue to push my personal boundaries in 2019, especially when it comes to exercise and endurance, with several exciting challenges in the works, including running the Austin marathon in February with team: “kicking #Parkinsons bootay” and the Boston Marathon in April, both to benefit #teamfox.
We also are working towards an annual race that we expect to host in the fall as well as a very exciting national event,more to come on both shortly.
On behalf of the team at UnCorked, thanks again for all of your support, 2019 is going to be a very exciting year for us and we are inspired by all of you, to continue to push our personal and organizational impact to help people with Parkinson’s Disease make the most out of life, while we all work together to find a cure. Happy New Year!
