Naperville girls to 'keep helping' ALS with dodgeball tourney
Editor's note: This story has been updated to correctly identify the Les Turner ALS Foundation as the organization that will receive funds from the tournament.
A dodgeball tournament organized by two Naperville students is back for its fourth year after raising more than $40,000 to fight a deadly disease affecting a popular gym teacher's wife.
The Dodgin' 4 Lou Gehrig's disease Dodgeball Tournament begins at 5 p.m. Friday at Naperville North High School, 899 N. Mill St., and will raise money for the Les Turner ALS Foundation.
Naperville Central sophomores Taylor Morrissey and Delaney Gibbons launched the tournament in 2012 after Denise DiMarzo, the wife of their Meadow Glens Elementary gym teacher Chris Benyo, was diagnosed with ALS.
"It's a really bad disease and we see how it affects Denise and we just want to keep helping raise money for this disease," Taylor said.
ALS stands for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. It's better-known as Lou Gehrig's disease because it took the life of the Yankees baseball great in 1941. The degenerative disease affects the motor neurons that carry signals from the brain to the muscles, telling them to move. When the disease causes motor neurons to die, muscles waste away, but mental function remains intact.
Seeing how Benyo and DiMarzo support each other has motivated parents and community members to get involved with the tournament the girls first planned when they were seventh-graders.
Julie Romanelli, whose two children went through Meadow Glens, said her business has supported the tournament since it started with silent auction items and now with a donation to cover the cost of T-shirts for volunteers.
"They're just a great couple. For the children and for the community, they're very inspiring," Romanelli, a dentist at Maple Park Dental in Naperville, said about Benyo and DiMarzo. "To show the dedication and commitment they have to each other is amazing."
A $5 admission ticket gets spectators in to see 48 dodgeball teams from Naperville-area high schools take aim at each other during the tournament, which begins with an opening ceremony led by radio host Dolly McCarthy featuring the national anthem performed by Wayne Messmer.
Tournament organizers say they've completed a high school marketing class and joined the DECA business club, both of which have helped them grow the event.
After raising $13,000 the first year, the girls want to raise $20,000 this time around.
"Seeing how far we've come and how it keeps on improving every year is always motivation for us to make it stronger," Delaney said.