KBTX has one more MDA Telethon under our belts, and this year’s event was a huge success. It was an outpouring of support Monday as residents across the Brazos Valley opened up their pocket books to help find a cure for muscular dystrophy. And it’s an event that’s helping people not only across the country but right here at home. “I just want to find a cure for this disease and every little amount counts,” said Norilee Tomchesson of Bryan. Tomchesson has been battling primary lateral sclerosis for the last five years. “There’s no amount too small,” she said during Monday’s telethon. On Labor Day her whole family was rallying behind her to raise money at the KBTX 38th annual MDA Telethon in College Station. “PLS is one of the adult muscular dystrophy diseases and it’s I think the term they like to use is treatable but not curable at this point,” said Mike Tomchesson, Norilee’s husband. Mike Tomchesson helped man the phone lines Monday as hundreds of people called in pledging donations to help MDA find a cure. “It’s so much fun I hate it’s for such a serious purpose because it really is a lot of fun,” he said. “And so we really really rely on people in the community to provide things like our summer camp, our research our services our clinics, our support groups it really comes from the people, the community,” said MDA Executive Director Jennifer Carrisal. Carrisal said locally the organization serves hundreds of families in the Brazos Valley and millions nationally. “What I love most about especially the College Station, Bryan area is just that the community is so giving here and every year we come back and the donations just keep getting more generous,” Carrisal said. A generosity that will hopefully not be needed one day, when cures for muscular dystrophy are found. “I just want to walk again,” said Norilee Tomchesson to which Mike Tomchesson replied, “We’ll get there, we’ll get there.” At the end of the day Brazos Valley viewers donated $ 168,793.85 for MDA which is $ 14,000 more than what was raised at the Telethon last year. The Telethon raised a total of $ 58.9 million nationwide.
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Tags: 38th, Annual, KBTX, Labor, Success, telethon