Freudenthal's Donation (6-26-20)

Freudenthal's Donation (6-26-20)

Parkinson's disease getting their sweat back on...after closing for nine weeks due to covid-19... members are back hitting the gym at east hills mallbut not before a generous donation came their way.

Kq2's kilee thomas tells us about the center's newest exercise class.

"today is extremely special."

Freudenthal's center for parkinson's disease the ride of a lifetime facebook awhile back saying i would recycle bikes if somebody was going to just throw them in the dumpster, that i would come pick them up and make the best of them."

And that he did together this tandem bike for the nonprofit...all with the help from a generous donation "you give things because they help others and you want to do that and that's how my husband was."

Jill tracey set up a foundation in honor of her husband lived his life helping others "he was a huge giver, helped everybody, loved everybody.

After he died, there was a lot of giving that came to me and people that donated.

I put that money in a place and said i'm going to use that money for anything my husband would want."

Now parkinson's disease can push the pedal to the metal "i have wanted to do cycling since we started."the idea of the tandem bike someone with parkinson's in the back and someone without parkinson's in the front makes them go faster than they normally would and that actually creates some neuron connections in the brain and makes them work harder."

Freudenthals offers free exercise classes to help slow the disease.."the research shows that the only thing that actually starts to slow down the progression of parkinson's is actually exercise."

After the pandemic forced classes to hit the breaks "unfortunately because of the pandemic and shutdown, i did see several people who did lose some physical ability.

Who even lost some psycho-social abilities, some cognitive issues because they're not doing the same thing over and over again which is really important for them."they say getting back in gear feels like a victory lap reporting in st.

Joseph kilee thomas kq2 news if you would like to donate and help expand their cycling class - or if you would like to join a class...head on over to this story on kq2-dot-com for the link.