The Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) is “incarcerating” some of the area’s most “notorious” business leaders to raise money for local families living with neuromuscular diseases.

The association covers 43 neuromuscular diseases, including as ALS/Lou Gehrig’s disease. May is ALS Awareness Month, and this event will focus on ALS and the other diseases covered. We have invited several families to attend and meet our participants.

The 2012 Roanoke MDA Lock-Up will be held from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Tuesday, May 15 at the Holiday Inn Tanglewood. Volunteer participants, who will serve one hour sentences “behind bars,” have each been asked to raise $2,400 “bail.”  This amount is significant because it will send 3 kids to MDA Summer Camp!

“Jailbirds” will be handcuffed, dressed in black and white stripes, briefly “locked-up” in a mock MDA jail and given a souvenir “mug shot” to share with their donors.  Area restaurants are donating gourmet “bread and water,” and nTelos Wireless provides equipment and service to help participants call in last minute favors to finish collecting funds.

All proceeds from this event will directly benefit local men, women and children served by MDA.  Funds will be used to pay for MDA Clinic Visits, therapy, research, support groups, flu shots and to repair medical equipment.  Much of the money will help send children ages 6-17 to a week of MDA Summer Camp at the Smith Mountain Lake 4-H Center where campers swim, ride horses and canoes, sing, dance and do all of the other things that healthier children can do all year long!

MDA does not receive any government grants or funding from the United Way, so every “Jailbird” is a true hero to the families we serve.

For more information about this event and MDA, call 540-772-3237 or email roanoke@mdausa.org.

Submitted by Leslie Bauguss, MDA Fundraising Coordinator.