News
More than 100 Alphas and friends raise research funds with Washington Bridge Walk, are featured on TV news
More than 100 Alphas, their families and friends participated in the 4th annual George Washington Bridge Walk Saturday.
With donations still being counted, the walkers had raised more than $18,000 for the Alpha-1 Foundation’s research programs.
For the first time, a New York TV station did a feature on the walk and its local participants
Among the Alpha-1 teams were Rose McClellan and 29 friends and family members who call themselves “Billy’s Team Alpha” after her late husband. William “Billy” McClellan, who received a liver transplant in the 1990s due to Alpha-1 liver disease, died in 2001. Billy’s Team Alpha walked the bridge in his honor.
Among the many other teams taking part:
- Team Carmel, which Alexandria Corrado named in memory of her grandmother, Carmel Cassella, an Alpha;
- Team Golder, named in memory of Preston “Buddy” Golder, who had a lung transplant because of Alpha-1 lung disease;
- Walsh’s Walkers, Fred Walsh and family members including Linda Walsh, his niece and daughter of John Walsh, who missed his first bridge walk because he was out of the country;
- Elliot Kasoff, an Alpha, and family members;
- Pam Van Scoy and her family, who got up at 3 am to drive from their home in Virginia and take part in the walk.
- And Loretta Ehrlund, DVM, a veterinarian from San Antonio, TX, who probably traveled farther than anyone else to join the walk. She took advantage of the Mother’s Day weekend to see her family and walk with some of them in honor of her late husband, Larry Ehrlund, an Alpha who was also a veterinarian in San Antonio.
