The Many Reasons We Walk
- SFGC
- Apr 29
- 5 min read
Updated: May 7
Every year, people show up with purpose, with love, with grief, with hope, and often with a team behind them. At our Walk to Cure Scleroderma events there is no single “right” reason to participate. Teams are formed from every corner of life, and behind each one is a story. Here are just a few of the impactful stories from our community.
Walking for Yourself
For those living with scleroderma, the walk can be deeply personal. It’s a declaration: I’m here. I’m fighting. I’m not alone.
For many, it’s also a first step into community. Support Group Leader Franny Kaplan shared: “People who may not feel ready for a support group often come to the walk first. They find themselves opening up, connecting, and this leads them to come back for more.”
Walking as Family, Friends & Caregivers
Behind every diagnosis is a circle of people who love, support, and advocate. Families form teams to stand beside their person, to raise awareness, to fund research, and to do something tangible in the face of uncertainty.
Memorial Teams: Love That Lives On
Some teams walk in memory of a loved one. They return year after year, turning remembrance into action. What might have been a quiet grief becomes something shared, an annual reunion of love, legacy, and purpose - creating a better future for others.
Service & Community Teams
From rheumatology practices to sororities, fraternities, and local businesses. Some form teams simply to serve. They may not have a personal connection to scleroderma at first, but they leave with one. These teams are essential to growing awareness and expanding our reach. They remind us that advocacy doesn’t require a diagnosis, just a willingness to care.
The Heart of a Team: Real Stories
Franny’s Friends: A Community That Shows Up
Franny didn’t start her journey with scleroderma as a patient, but as a friend. Back in the early days of the walk, she and a group of friends rallied around someone else’s diagnosis, gathering auction items, organizing donations, and building something from the ground up.
Years later, Franny herself was diagnosed. And she kept walking. She built Franny’s Friends into a thriving, ever-growing team rooted in Highland Park. Drawing from decades of connections: school friends, family, neighbors, and now even her grandchildren’s circles.
“Everyone is so generous with their time and money. It’s like a big shot in the arm when everyone is together, feeling that energy.”
Team Lisa Joy: A Father’s Love, Measured in Action
Lisa was a teacher, a pianist, a mother, a mentor. Someone who gave so much of herself to the people around her. Diagnosed after the birth of her second child, she faced years of complications. And still, she showed up for her family, her students, and her community until she lost her battle with scleroderma. After her passing, the team didn’t stop. Her father, Gary, kept it going.
Gary is an accountant by trade, and you can see it in the way he leads. Where some might feel overwhelmed by fundraising, Gary brings clarity. Discipline. Intention. He tracks everything. An Excel spreadsheet. Names, notes, giving history. Who gave last year. Who might need a reminder. Who always shows up.
“I know every year people give. I know what percentage of the total we raise.”
Every spring, he starts again, sending well over 100 emails. Each year, a new letter. The message is familiar, but never copied and pasted without thought. Because each ask still matters. He starts with family then branches outward to friends, neighbors, and extended circles. His children’s networks. Their friends’ parents. Local businesses he frequents.
“People that you do business with, put them on the spot. They should donate.”
Year after year, a father’s love and refusal to let Lisa’s story fade. Showing up not just for her, but for every family who might face this disease next.
“We walk to create hope for the next person.”
Team Helfand: Building a Community That Shows Up, Year After Year
For David Helfand, this work is both deeply personal and deeply rooted in community.
His wife, Lisa, was diagnosed with scleroderma as a child, one of the small percentage of people each year who face this disease in its juvenile form. It’s something she has lived with for most of her life, shaping not only her path, but the way her entire family shows up in the world.
David has long served on the board of the Scleroderma Foundation of Greater Chicago, helping to guide the work behind the scenes. But when it comes to the walk, this is where everything comes together. This is where community takes center stage.
The Highland Park walk has grown into one of the largest in the region, consistently raising six figures. That kind of momentum doesn’t happen by accident. It’s built on relationships. The kind that come from years of connection in a tight-knit community where people know each other, support each other, and step up when it matters.
“The only way this disease is going to get cured is with more money, and this is how it gets raised.”
For the Helfands, the walk is more than an event. It’s a reunion. “It’s the only reunion that isn’t a wedding or a funeral.” A chance to reconnect. To see familiar faces. To gather with purpose.
Lisa herself is a powerful force within the community. A teacher, a national public speaker, and an author, she has used her voice to raise awareness far beyond her immediate circle. She has spoken at national conferences, connected with leaders in the space, and continues to look for ways to cast a wider net, so more people understand this disease and what it takes to live with it.
The walks are a chance to be together in a sea of faces, families, friends, patients, and supporters, all gathered in one place.
“Seeing all the people that are afflicted by the disease trying to do something about it… it gives others some hope.” That’s what keeps Team Helfand coming back. Year after year. Building something bigger than themselves.
A community that shows up, and keeps showing up, until there are answers.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Join Us in 2026 - Wherever You Are
This year, we are proud to host five walks across the region:
11th Annual
15th Annual
24th Annual
8th Annual
18th Annual
And through our Hometown Walk, you can participate from anywhere. Creating your own walk, your own team, your own moment of impact. Learn More
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