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Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA)
SANTA CLARA, CALIFORNIA (Santa Clara Weekly) - "Come on! It's for the kids! Give me $1,000!" says "jailbird" Phil Restivo, talking on his cell phone with his friend John at Joseph J. Albanese Inc. "You can do it!" Restivo was showing me how to make cold calls and raise "bail" money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA).
"I got $1,000!" Restivo hollers, ringing the silver bell in front of him. His fellow jailbirds clap and cheer.
Restivo, founder of LeGrande Affaire, Santa Clara, and a repeat "offender," was one of about 40 Santa Clarans accused of having big hearts who were locked up by the MDA November 4 for good—that is, for doing good. About 40 others eluded arrest, remaining at large in the community.
The unlucky jailbirds had been fetched by local police and taken to a make-shift jail at the Fish Market Restaurant, 3775 El Camino Real. They were fed meals such as "caught red-handed snapper" and "conviction chicken" as they made desperate calls to friends and business associates to raise money for research and services benefitting the one million Americans with MD.
MD is a cover term for some 43 genetic diseases marked by progressive weakness and degeneration of the skeletal muscles that control movement and, in some cases, involuntary muscles such as the heart.
In just a couple of hours at the restaurant the jailbirds raised about $12,000, almost doubling the $13,000 raised prior to their arrest and bringing the MDA 2010 Santa Clara Lock-Up total to $25,390.
I was one of the jailbirds who had raised their $1,600 bail before being arrested by asking everyone I know and their uncle for money. "How much would it cost to keep you in jail? Throw away the key?" responded my brother Jim.
"It's nice that neighbors are involved in the community and giving back to it—even if it's from behind bars," said my neighbor Frank Vasquez, former Santa Clara Chief of Police, dropping off a donation at my house.
On lockup day, two friends visit me behind bars at the restaurant, bringing a hack saw with them. "This way of fundraising is a captivating experience," puns Elsie Hasling.
"It was easy to make a donation online," says Judi Pogue, taking her turn with the hack saw.
MD is not the disease closest to my heart, but as with any illness or disease, you don't pick it. It picks you. I'm glad I agreed to be a jailbird for good. It was fun. But unlike Restivo, who easily raised $2,800 in an hour behind bars, raising bail took me a month of e-mailing.
MD is considered an orphan disease because it doesn't attract the attention or funding of diseases that affect more people, and the MDA is the world's largest non-governmental sponsor of research into the causes of and effective treatments for neuromuscular diseases.
According to Bay Area fund-raising coordinator Linda Alexander, in 2010 the MDA (mda.org) awarded $10 million in local research grants to Stanford University, UC Berkeley, UCSC, UC Davis, UCSF, and Forbes Norris MDA/ALS Research and Treatment Center (ccpmc.org).
"This lockup sure gets a lot of people involved," says jailbird Zak Tawil, Wienerschnitzl franchise owner. "Some of my friends thought it was real and called me from out of state."
While the part about Tawil being a jailbird isn't for real, MD is for real, and there's still time to contribute bail for the 2010 Santa Clara Lock-Up. If you don't know any other MDA jailbirds, you can donate on my MDA webpage: http://www.joinmda.org/MyLockup/MyHomepage/tabid/181355/Participant/dtandrews/Default.aspx.
Copyright 2013 Santa Clara Weekly
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Updated 922 days ago Article ID# 729260
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