Josh Berry says that his father Jim was “a master of seeing the positive in any negative situation.” This attitude was put to the test when he was diagnosed with ALS in 2015. However, the way Jim carried himself throughout the course of his disease inspired Josh to stay strong by his dad’s side – and to stay in the fight against ALS after he passed away in 2020.
“That was a rough time for the family,” Josh remembers of the time after Jim’s diagnosis. “I was young, and I truly did not want to believe my Dad just got diagnosed with a terminal illness. I didn’t understand that I was losing someone as instrumental to me as my Father. But in 2016, he stopped me on the way to our neighbors (Had just got his walker, as the effects of this disease began to become visual), and he said: ‘You're going to make me a promise Josh. We're going to say, this is the best thing that's ever happened to us, and we're going to stay true to that, to the end.’ “
“So, I said ‘You got my word, I am here for whatever you say Pops’” he continues. “Since then, I’ve tried so hard to curate the glass-half-full mentality, that Jimbo had. In harder times, in the suffering, you have to dig deep for that silver lining, to see something positive. But when you find it, it's way more beautiful and way more meaningful than just about anything in life. And ultimately, that’s what’s fueled the JIMBO Foundation, and my family sticking around the ALS community.”
The Mission of the JIMBO Foundation
The JIMBO Foundation, named after one of Jim’s affectionate nicknames, is an organization founded by Josh to honor his father’s memory by raising funds for ALS Research. All proceeds raised by the foundation through events and fundraisers go to support the critical research to end ALS at the ALS Therapy Development Institute (ALS TDI). Josh says he has chosen to dedicate his efforts to helping fund research so that, someday, no one will have to experience what his family went through.
“All throughout the near six years my dad had ALS, I remember praying every single night that a cure for ALS would surface in his lifetime,” he says. “And now the prayer is still the same, it's just changed a little bit. Now I pray for a cure for ALS in my lifetime, just so I can see it, be a part of it and just witness the amount of joy that will be out there for people with ALS and their families.”
The 2023 JIMBO Foundation Golf Outing
The foundation’s main avenue for raising these funds is through its annual golf outing, the 2023 event will take place on Monday, July 17th at the Moors Golf Club in Portage, MI. The location of the event is particularly special to Josh. Besides being an excellent venue for a day of golfing, the club played an important role in Jim and the Berry family’s lives.
“From 1999 through 2020, when [my dad] passed, we lived on hole number three of The Moors Golf Club, right off of the green,” says Josh. “My Dad's favorite thing to do is when he got done with work, he'd go play a quick nine holes. It’s a beautiful private course. We really are blessed to be able to get on that course.”
The outing will include 18 holes of golf at the Moors, along with hole-in-one, longest drive, and closest-to-the-pin contests. Interested participants can register as a foursome here, and there are also several available sponsorship opportunities for those who would like to further show their support. Josh says, in addition to a fun day of golf, the event presents an opportunity for himself and his family to remember Jim with his community.
“It's a time for everybody to get out and enjoy a beautiful golf course that means a lot not only my family,” says Josh, “but also to a lot of people in the Kalamazoo community that we are connected with. But most importantly, it’s a day that we can get out and fight this monster that is known as ALS – I firmly believe that this disease is not incurable… just severely underfunded & this is our opportunity to make everlasting change.”
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