Neuroscience doctoral student Kathleen Louis organized a bowling fundraiser to raise money for the MSAA, or the Multiple Sclerosis Association of America.

Multiple sclerosis is a neurological disorder that causes a person’s myelin sheath to deteriorate over time.

The myelin sheath is a protective coat over the neurons and nerves; it helps transfer information throughout your body.

When the myelin sheath is weakened, communication along the nerve pathways in your brain and spinal cord is reduced, and as a result, things such as coordination and balance are affected.

Louis said this is an issue that hits close to home, as her best friend struggles with it.

“It’s just unimaginable to see what she’s going through,” she said. “But I think with all the new treatments that have come out it’s really helped her over the years and I think that’s really what’s helped slow her progression. She’s had it for ten years but she’s kind of only slowly seen symptoms.”

MSU alumna Linda Beach, one of Louis’ friends who helped put the event together, said MS is an important issue to her because she also knows people who have it. She said it’s difficult to see people she loves coping with it, but she said their symptoms are fairly manageable.

Beach said it wasn’t just her personal experience with the disease that drove her to helping out Louis, but also the fact that putting together a fundraiser is a huge undertaking.

“I think I was just one of her friends who wanted to help her out because it’s a huge task to take on by yourself and you need to delegate for things like this,” she said. “She put in so much work, but I think we’re all happy to help out.”

Genetics doctoral student Laura Harding, who also helped out with the event, said she works in the same lab as Louis and wanted to help out in any way that she could.

Harding said she thinks events like this are important because raising awareness for diseases such as MS is imperative. 

“Not everyone knows someone who has MS, not everyone knows someone with these neurodegenerative diseases,” she said. “Like the ALS ice bucket challenge last year, a lot of people didn’t know what ALS was before that and so these little events just kind of bring it to the forefront.”

Louis said this fundraiser has not only accomplished its goal of raising $2,000, it’s also accomplished its goal of raising awareness and educating people on the disease.

She said as she’s been walking around and talking to people, people have been sharing their own personal experiences with MS, so people who didn’t know about it before are learning a lot.

“I think that’s really what’s important because that’ll help to just raise awareness and help us to concentrate on this disease for helping find a cure and things like that,” she said.