Meet Bill, Victoria, and Gwendolyn Strong of California. In August 2009, the Strongs launched Unite For The Cure as a way to organize and motivate the SMA community around one simple goal: to collectively raise $100,000 to enable the promising SMA stem cell program led by Dr. Keirstead at UC Irvine to get to and through human clinical trials as efficiently as possible.
Why have the Strongs decided to unite for the cure?
Bill and Victoria Strong live in Santa Barbara, California with their daughter, Gwendolyn. Gwendolyn was born perfectly healthy in October 2007, but was diagnosed with SMA Type I at 6-months-old. The Strongs are passionate about raising awareness of SMA and their foundation, the Gwendolyn Strong Foundation, is centered on funding research that is solely focused on curing this cruel disease. In July 2008, they started PetitionToCureSMA.com, an online petition in support of legislation that would help organize resources around the extremely mature SMA research community — to date, their petition has received over 70,000 signatures. In August 2009, the Strongs started “Tweet For A Cure” (EndSMA.org/twitter), as a simple way for people to Tweet their Congresspeople about the SMA Treatment Acceleration Act — to date, over 2,500 people have Tweeted their Congresspeople reaching over 1.5 Million Twitter followers. Bill and Victoria feel fortunate to have met with Dr. Hans Keirstead in July 2009 and were astounded by his accomplishments, his research, his facility, and the very real potential of his groundbreaking efforts ending SMA once and for all. The Strongs wholeheartedly believe this clinical trial will lead to a cure — IF given the funding — and they created Unite For The Cure in August 2009 to motivate the SMA community to band together to make certain that funding is not an obstacle to seeing this promising research to and through human clinical trial as quickly as possible. Uniting with others to take funding out of the equation is simple — in comparison to the devastation caused by SMA. And, Gwendolyn’s bright spark is a constant motivator to continue fighting for that cure.
