On Wednesday, May
6th the Knowles Foundation hosted their second annual luncheon to
benefit the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation. More than 50 guests attended the event, which was held at the Highlawn Pavilion in West Orange, NJ, featuring Matthew Reeve as the special
guest speaker.
(Pictured from left to right: Matthew Reeve, Leslie Knowles, Kurt Knowles, Peter Wilderotter, Kurt Knowles, Jr.)
Matthew shared clips from his documentary,
Hope In Motion, an intimate portrait of
his father, Christopher Reeve’s remarkable fight to regain mobility and advocate
for funding to support research and quality of life programs for people living
with spinal cord injury. Matthew spoke of how proud both his father and Dana
would be to see the progress the Foundation has made in our two-pronged mission
of care and cure.
The afternoon ended on a high note with heartfelt remarks
from
Reeve Foundation Ambassador, Scott Chesney, who spoke about the
Foundation’s approach to looking for “cures” not just one magic bullet. He
talked about his own personal experience of becoming a father after having been
told from the time of his injury at age 15, that he would never have children. (
Watch a video of Scott talking about his injury.)
For Scott, being able to father his own children IS a cure, and he expressed his
gratitude to the Foundation for funding programs that look into issues such as
male fertility, and other secondary conditions related to SCI. We are
extremely grateful to the Knowles family for hosting such a wonderful and
uplifting program.
(
Find out more about getting involved locally!)
Aimee Hunnewell
Director, Mid-Atlantic Region
Christopher & Dana Reeve
Foundation
