Meet Neuro Challenge Champion Carolina Murphy and Team Murphy

Having retired in 2016 after 37 years of dedicated service, this Cuban immigrant was a tennis coach, mentor, admissions director and director of parent and alumni relations of the IMG Academy in Bradenton. Carolina, her husband, Mark and children Meghan and John Ryan—now known as Team Murphy—hit the ground running almost immediately after learning about Carolina's PD diagnosis in 2015. Carolina says, "I decided to view PD as God's throwing me a curveball. He wanted to see how I handled hitting this pitch every day."

Carolina is a Neuro Challenge super volunteer, always there to organize office projects, lead the more than 100 Expo volunteers and serve as a liaison during fundraising events. Team Murphy is a family who lives, works and plays together - and during the 2020 Giving Challenge they helped Carolina reach the Top 10 Champions leaderboard and inspire over 700 people from the local Parkinson's community to give through their winning Peer-to-Peer fundraising campaign.

Here is Carolina's story, in her own words: "As you all know, since my PD diagnosis in August of 2015, my family and I have been blessed with a plethora of invaluable resources (support, education, exercise, therapy programs and care advising) all provided to us for free by the Neuro Challenge Foundation for Parkinson's (NCF). NCF helps us stay informed on how to lead the most productive life with PD and most importantly they help us feel hopeful, motivated and empowered! Through our involvement with NCF we have met hundreds of others who are on our same journey which has proven to ease the bumps we hit every so often.

On April 28th and 29th, during the 24-hour Giving Challenge this amazing organization will have the opportunity to raise funds that will allow them to continue offering free resources to over 2700 people with Parkinson's. For this reason, I have chosen to take on the role of a fundraising Champion. My fundraising will help Neuro Challenge improve the quality of life of people with Parkinson's and their caregivers today. Despite the challenging Corona Virus situation, Neuro Challenge is providing more than 50 virtual programs for the Parkinson's community! I have participated in many of them and it has been the lifeline for so many of us to stay connected, supported, motivated and informed."

Team Murphy and dozens of other Neuro Challenge Champions, donors and friends were instrumental in creating unbelievable levels of excitement and sharing a commitment with the local Parkinsons' community that we are better together. Team Murphy and other Champions inspired a level of giving like never before, and helped others to see they are never alone in their Parkinson's journey.

Neuro Challenge is beyond grateful to Carolina, her extraordinary family and the thousands of Parkinson's fighters who make it possible for Neuro Challenge to continue to offer all programs and services at no cost. #ABetterApproachToParkinsons #BetterTogether

For more about Neuro Challenge Foundation for Parkinson's, visit https://www.neurochallenge.org/