Neil supports MOFF’s mission and shares our organizational values having experienced the loss of a loved one to ALS in 2015. Driven by his experience with the challenges of caring for a loved one battling this disease locally, Neil is determined to help families living on the Central Coast find and maintain the medical care they need as well as do everything possible to support finding a cure.

In his spare time, Neil enjoys hiking, fishing and traveling with his wife Jennifer and their two children.

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Don Woodward is a legendary member of the San Luis Obispo, CA community. He was an incredibly talented football player, golfer, and businessman. His name is well known in the California car industry where he started his business career at one of his grandfather’s dealerships, Lompoc Honda. Don’s name is one that brings a smile to everyone’s face that knew him and “f*#k ALS” energy to those who understand he was taken when he had much more life to live. Don’s wife at the time, Maggie Woodward, selflessly cared for Don throughout his ALS journey. She remains a pillar of strength and provided Larry Fernandez valuable guidance when Larry was going through his caretaking experience with Martha. The burden of ALS on families is palpable. The Woodward and the Fernandez families had everything you need to make the most out of the time you have left: love, humor, and Don and Martha.

Friends of Don golf in the Martha Olson-Fernandez Foundation (MOFF) Annual Golf Tournament and the “Woody” tournament at the San Luis Obispo Country Club each year. His memory truly is kept alive by his family, friends, and the golfing community. His friends, John Ronca and Scott Dierks, work closely with MOFF. John has served on the MOFF board for the past 2 years.

Why does the Don Woodward ALS Research Grant exist?

The grant exists to connect the golfers and sponsors that participate in the MOFF Annual Golf Tournament fundraiser directly to an ALS lab. When Martha outlined MOFF’s mission in 2012, she wrote on a piece of paper that “All funds go to research.” This grant is our way of making sure the MOFF community stays rooted in our mission and that our donors feel that connection to the research projects that are creating potential therapies for this brutal disease.

What labs have received this grant money ($10,000) in the past?

2019: USC Ichida Lab for ALS (Dr. Justin Ichida)

2020: Duke University ALS Lab (Dr. Richard Bedlack)

2021: The ALS Cure Project at Lawrence Livermore Labs (Mike Piscotty)

How do I apply to have my lab considered to be the recipient of the Don Woodward ALS Research Grant?

Email moffoundation@gmail.com and ask for our request for proposals (RFP) application. The deadline for proposal submissions is July 1st each year. Grants winners will be announced in September and grant funding will be distributed in February of the following year.

How do I become the Don Woodward ALS Research Grant Sponsor?

MOFF encourages any individual or company to become the Don Woodward ALS Research Grant Sponsor. Sponsors will have the opportunity to tour the ALS research lab that is selected and discuss the project with the researcher. Sign up to receive notifications from MOFF here. MOFF will announce the opening of registration for our annual golf tournament event in July. Once you receive notification of the golf tournament event, simply sign up via our event platform that will be listed in the email. Alternatively, email moffoundation@gmail.com and announce your intention to be the sponsor.

A HUGE special thanks goes out to Larry Fernandez who has been the Don Woodward ALS Research Grant Sponsor for the past 3 years. Thank you, Larry for your continued support!!

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The post Meet MOFF’s Event Planning Intern: Victoria Humphrey first appeared on Martha Olson Fernandez Foundation – Bloom Where You Are Planted..

Natalie is honored to be a part of the PCAC. ALSA staff works hard to provide care and support for ALS families. They are also the largest funder of ALS research projects in the world, which is pretty incredible considering they are a nonprofit. While Natalie is aware of the tension that exists between ALSA and more grassroots ALS movements, she is excited for this opportunity to focus and inform initiatives that directly affect families living with ALS. In the words of Sandy Morris, “We are all fighting for the same thing. When we find that we are fighting each other, we are on the wrong path.” It through collaboration and focus on our shared goal that we are going to find a cure for ALS.

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Let’s face it, the clinical trial world is overwhelming, especially if you have recently been diagnosed with a disease. ClinWiki.org is a nonprofit foundation whose mission is to make clinical trials more transparent and approachable. ClinWiki works with various stakeholders across many therapeutic areas in order to invite collaboration into a space that was previously siloed. Their efforts allow clinical research teams, sponsor companies, and patients recognize that we are all working towards the same end: effective treatments and cures for the diseases that plague our population.

The ClinWiki ALS project began in December 2019 and is projected to continue through October 2020. Natalie Fernandez, CFO and Program Director at MOFF, is the ALS Team Project Leader. She will be working in collaboration with Amy Westermann, the Executive Director at ClinWiki, and Sheri Strahl, COO of ALSA GW to complete the project. The project goal is to orient ClinWiki to the ALS community and emphasize the priorities of ALS patients as they search for clinical trials.

ALS is a unique disease when it comes to clinical trials for many reasons. For starters, it is debilitating and fatal. These two facts alone make concepts such as traveling to trial sites, placebo controls, and the extremely long duration of clinical trials incredibly burdensome to people living with the disease. The role of ALSA GW and MOFF is to help format the ALS clinical trial search in such away that highlights the important aspects of the trial so that people living with ALS do not spend months sifting through the data on clinicaltrials.gov. Enrollment criteria such as ALS onset, Forced Vital Capacity, and disease duration are just some of the tags being created in order to make the trials easier to sift through. Some key questions that will be highlighted are listed below.

• Does this trial offer Expanded Access?
• Does this trial offer Open Label Extension (OLE)?
• Is travel required?
• Does this trial offer remote monitoring?

Natalie is very excited to be working on this project. Stay tuned for the official launch in Fall 2020!

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