Cargill Cares Spain volunteers donate more than $11,000 for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Foundation
“Today is a fantastic day for people with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, for their families, for Cargill volunteers and for our community, I feel honored to be part of Cargill’s community initiatives”, said Teresa Soler, volunteer at Cargill Cares Spain.
On May 15, Cargill Cares Spain carried out the annual humanitarian walk where more than 200 people participated in the walk and more than 300 collaborated with a donation.
This year’s walk is the fourth edition of this humanitarian walk. This time the walk has been dedicated to the Miquel-Valls Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Foundation. The foundation’s objective is to improve quality of life of people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and their families. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis is a form of motor neuron disease caused by the degeneration of neurons located in the ventral horn of the spinal cord and the cortical neurons that provide their afferent input. ALS is a progressive, fatal, neurodegenerative disease with most affected patients dying of respiratory compromise and pneumonia after 2 to 3 years.
At the moment, there is no cure for ALS, diagnosis is difficult, and the causes of ALS are not completely understood. Between five and ten of every 100,000 people in the world will develop ALS. More than 4,000 people have ALS in Spain.
The $11,000 donated to Miquel-Valls ALS Foundation will be useful to relief efforts to help people with ALS.
It was in this spirit of this humanitarian walk that the participants choose to spend a Sunday walking to one of the most beautiful mountains in Barcelona: Turo de l’Home , a 5616 ft mountain. Early in the morning, Cargill Cares volunteers started to arrange the walk and participants arrived to the starting point. Cargill employees, their families, friends, children and members of the Miquel-Valls ALS foundation participated in the walk.
“We sincerely appreciate all your support, thank you to Cargill Cares , to Cargill employees, to all people and friends who are here and for the support in this mission. Our hearts are at the top of this mountain to be closer with our colleague Jack-van-den Hoek who passed away some weeks ago because of the ALS.” said Jose-Maria Mateo, Cargill’s country representative and general manager. The event was commemorated with a moment of silence.
Moving forward, Cargill Cares in Spain will continue to support projects which can help our communities as part of our corporate responsibility.