Parkinson’s Foundation Announces 24-Hour “A Day to Reach Further” Fundraising Event

The Parkinson’s Foundation initiated its inaugural “A Day to Reach Further” event on Tuesday, September 19. The 24-hour day of giving was launched to raise awareness and funds to support research, care, and quality-of-life–improving programs for people with Parkinson disease (PD). During “A Day to Reach Further,” the company Rune Labs, developer of the iOS disease management app StrivePD, will match each donation of up to $10,000.

“A Day to Reach Further” is part of the 4-year Reach Further campaign, with an overall fundraising goal of $30 million. The foundation plans to distribute $20 million of the campaign’s funds to research efforts that accelerate treatment development for PD. One recipient will be the PD GENEration genetic registry (NCT04994015), which is currently recruiting up to 15,000 participants to develop a central repository of PD-related genomic data, with the aim of accelerating the enrollment process for future clinical trials. The Parkinson’s Foundation also plans to use $5 million of the collected funds towards its own Global Care Network for the purpose of expanding clinical care coverage for people with PD. An additional $5 million from the Reach Further campaign will be distributed to community education and grant programs that support individuals with PD and their families.

“Having the entire Parkinson's community participate in ‘A Day to Reach Further’ will make for an amazing collective effort toward making life better for people living with the disease and their loved ones,” said Parkinson's Foundation President and CEO John L. Lehr.

PD is one of the most common neurodegenerative diseases in the US, affecting a total of 1 million Americans, with 90,000 new cases diagnosed each year.