Communty members participate in ‘lock-up’ to raise funds for Muscular Dystrophy

On Thursday, the Muscular Dystrophy Association held a fund raising event to help send kids to camp. But instead of just donating money, community members were picked up and dropped off at “jail” or the Texas Roadhouse in Pocatello. Then they asked family members and friends to make donations to the MDA to help them post “bail”. The funds from the event will help send children in Utah and Idaho with Muscular Dystrophy to camp.

“We have two camps that connect to this area. Up in Boise and McCall, Idaho they send about 50 kids and in the Salt Lake City camp we sent about 120 kids this year and it was a record year,” commented Lisa Miller, the executive director of the Utah and Eastern Idaho Muscular Dystrophy Office.

The MDA said around 600 families in Idaho are impacted by the disease. And close to 80 cents from every dollar raised from events like this one will go directly back to the local community.

“So sometimes we joke our office, our technology is a pen and a piece of paper. Like people are used to big and powerful equipment and those kinds of things, we work pretty lean and mean, but we are really grateful to give most of those dollars back to the families,” Miller said.

Laline Jam, an Idaho State University student and an MDA Idaho ambassador said that while you cannot always tell if someone has the disease or not, it can impact people just like her.

“It is not always visible, people can be going through a lot of things and they do not always have to be in a wheelchair or anything like that. Like some of these diseases are actually quite invisible but it does not mean you do not have them,” commented Jam.

If you are interested in helping sending local children with Muscular Dystrophy to camp, click here.