For the second straight year, the Reds’ celebration of MLB’s annual Lou Gehrig Day included collaboration with the ALS Triple Play Initiative.
Unlike last year, Hop on a Cure, an ALS charity founded by Zac Brown Band member John Driskell “Hop” Hopkins, joined in support of raising awareness of and fighting the disease.
The artist, who has ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease), performed a pregame concert for all organizations and attendees under the umbrella of the ALS Triple Play Initiative.
Following his pregame show, Hopkins answered fan questions, one of which regarded the creation and effort of his foundation and his thought process behind it.
“We felt like we had our own platform, and we felt like the Zac Brown Band community would really get behind me,” Hopkins said. “I wanted my daughters to know that we did everything we could.”
Chair Force 1, Operation Ramp It Up and the Jeff Weber Always Lifting Spirits Foundation make up the trio of the ALS Triple Play Initiative. Each charity specializes in providing different services to ALS families in the Greater Cincinnati area.
Operation Ramp It Up, spearheaded by CEO Greg Schneider, focuses on building ramps for those with mobility issues, which includes ALS. The Jeff Weber Always Lifting Spirits Foundation, created in honor of Cincinnati native Jeff Weber, who died at 48 after a year-long battle with ALS, donates chair lifts to those fighting ALS.
Ben Coffaro, cofounder of Chair Force 1, a foundation that provides wheelchair-accessible vans alongside other mobility equipment to ALS families, recognized the opportunity of raising awareness and celebrating Lou Gehrig Day at Great American Ball Park.
“It's fitting that we're here today, because ALS has always been Lou Gehrig, [and that’s] always been a baseball thing,” Coffaro said. “In Cincinnati it's always been a community thing. When I think about Cincinnati and when I think about these organizations and the Reds, there's no one that really takes care of their own quite like the ALS community, the Reds community and some of the charities that we have here today.”
Coffaro, who lost his father to ALS, noted that it is always important for someone with ALS to have something to look forward to. He believes that with Hopkins’ performance, “the Cincinnati Reds gave us all something to look forward to and that helped us get through some of the times that are kind of tough.”
The organizations are pleased with the work that each of them does but understand how impactful their collaborations with one another are under the ALS Triple Play Initiative.
This clear unity was highlighted by the Always Lifting Spirits’ Heidi Berardinis.
“We've worked together, and we have made a support manual. Whoever [is visited] first, we give them a support manual that says, ‘Here's a bunch of organizations, not just ours, that will help you,’” Berardinis said. “’This one does ramps, this one does vans, this one does a vacation, this one does technology.’ Having all those resources in one place is very important, because they're just scrambling and surviving, and we want to try to make it as simple as possible for them.”
When someone receives a chair lift, a ramp and a van, or other mobility equipment, the trio crowns the event as a “triple play,” something the group has created a handful of times.
One such recipient is John Barlow, who threw out the first pitch at the Reds’ celebration of Lou Gehrig last year. Within days of Barlow throwing the first pitch, Chair Force 1 was able to get him a van. This year, Barlow used that van to get to the outing against the Milwaukee Brewers.
“More [awareness] means that when somebody is diagnosed with ALS in this community and they get connected, they’ll be aware of the services provided,” Barlow said, “including knowing if the stuff they need is there. It requires contributions and support from more people to do that. It’s life-changing. These guys are doing God’s work.”
Since last year’s event, Chair Force 1 has gotten 10 vans for ALS families. The work done by the initiative and the Reds’ highlight of this work has resulted in momentum to the duty that the ALS Triple Play Initiative looks to fulfill.
Joining the trio this year was Que4Care, an ALS fundraiser from Smoked Justis owner Richard Dickmann. For the second year in a row, the Covington restaurant held events in the week leading up to the Reds’ Lou Gehrig Day.
Dickmann found the ALS Triple Play Initiative through last year’s celebration. After being affected, he wished to help and wanted to further his involvement in their local purpose.
“I'm here to support. We have a mission. These three are ‘triple play.’ I'm going to be a utility guy for these guys,” Dickmann said. “We're going to help them raise awareness. We're going to make sure that we're raising the money for our purposes as well for the care.”
Smoked Justis’ ALS awareness efforts netted $66,530, $30,000 of which will go to ALS Triple Play.
With momentum in hand, the ALS Triple Play Initiative wishes to do more and more of what they’ve been doing.
“I think I'm up to 15 families in two years with ramps, and we're up to seven families with all three of us,” Schneider said. “Next year we want to double that. We don't want people to have ALS, but we want them to come to us for the help. That's what we're going to do. We want to keep raising more and more money and funds to make this happen.”
The Reds also partook in ALS-related initiatives before and throughout the game. The pregame ceremonies featured Lou Gehrig Award nominee Brent Suter helping surprise Steve Romberg, a baseball fan living with ALS, with a Reds-branded wheelchair.