Great Falls Optimist Club

Great Falls Optimist Club Supports Cystic Fibrosis Foundation On Behalf of Local Family

    The Great Falls Optimist Club recently presented a check for $500 to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation to support its research and treatment efforts.  The funds were raised through the  wildly-popular Spring Festival that the Club cosponsors each year with Adeler Jewelers. The egg hunt portion of the Festival includes over $5000 worth of gemstones donated by Adeler Jewelers, mixed with candy and stuffed into nearly 10,000 eggs that are scattered around the Village Centre for children ages 1-10 to find.  A wonderful tradition in the community, this event raised over $5,000 this year.  All proceeds go to the Great Falls Optimist Club Children’s Fund and are used to provide a range of programs, services and supplies to area children and their families.

    The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation was selected as one recipient of this year's funds to support the efforts of a local family who started the Great Strides walk in Great Falls.  Great Strides walks are the larges and fastest growing fundraiser for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.  The Wood's daughter, Rachel, has Cystic Fibrosis (CF). She has lived in Great Falls since she was two, and she attends Great Falls Elementary School. She plays travel soccer and basketball, and is known for her tenacious spirit.  Rachel looks like a healthy child on the outside, but she must take some 25 pills  and endure four lung treatments a day; and this is all when she is "healthy." 

    CF is a progressive disease and the damage to Rachel's lungs is irreversible.  CF is a life-threatening genetic disease that affects the respiratory and digestive systems of 30,000 children and young adults in the United States today. Currently, there is no cure. People with CF suffer from chronic and often fatal lung infections and have difficulty digesting food. CF is the number one genetic killer of children. Although the outlook for a child born with CF today has improved greatly over the years, we continue to lose one precious life to CF each day.

Over the past three years, the Great Falls community has rallied around Rachel's Hope (our walk team) with great generosity and support, raising in excess of $450,000 to help fund vital research. The Great Falls Optimist Club is proud to be part of this effort to raise badly-needed funds for this important research.

                                                                                                                              July  2006