MDA KLVI 15

Hi, Jay Willis with us this morning and representing MDA, Muscular Dystrophy Association. And I hope that, first of all, welcome to the show.

Thank you.

Kind of move into that microphone if you will a little. Is this MoMetrix, am I pronouncing that right?

Right, that's perfect.

MoMetrix, okay, M-O-M-E-T-R-I-X. They are tying in with MDA.

Right, so MoMetrix is donating all during this month, the month of August, 10% of sales that go through my division to go toward neuromuscular research through MDA.

Now you guys have raised over $40,000 so far for MDA to fund neuromuscular research's hopes of finding a cure and a cause.

Right, since 2011.

I think most of us are very, very familiar with muscular dystrophy and the Muscular Dystrophy Association. Over the years, the icon was and still is in many people's minds Jerry Lewis. Who conducted some very, very efficient, efficiently run and successful telethons. I think we've gotten to an age now where the telethons are just not what they were 20 or 25 years ago. I see, I think we see this in, in beauty contests. It's just a different world with people on Facebook and people with their phones, and they just don't have time. Nevertheless, the disease moves on, right? Right. And, uh, you guys have done this— this is what, your 13th year?

Uh, well, we've been around since 2002. The company's been around since 2002. This is actually— we started in 2011, so this is our 5th year raising money to go toward neuromuscular research.

All right, now this is a picture of your poster child.

So no, that's actually my son. Oh, my son Benjamin. Uh, when he was 2 and a half, we— he was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy, which is a form of muscular dystrophy.

You know, we have so many great stories to tell. As a matter of fact, one of the attorneys up in Hardin County is a muscular dystrophy survivor, and he was on our telethons way back in, in the middle and late '70s. And you know, this is— I can always remember Jerry when we were in Vegas talking about the fact that 83 to 86 cents out of every dollar went back into the care and cure, or the eventual cure of MD. Right. Because it's a very, very efficiently run company, and of course with, you know, the fire departments locally doing their job.

They do a lot to help support.

Yeah, they do, and 10% right here, that's nothing. You have helped, tell us a little bit about Mometrix actually.

So Mometrix offers test preparation for over 1,000 different standardized exams, everything from SAT, ACT, GRE for graduate school, STAR exams, teacher certification, and about anything you can think of. They offer flashcards, study guides, and practice questions for all those different types of exams.

So this is an organization that's been around for, as we said, 13 years.

Since 2002, right?

Okay, so basically, I guess if anybody wanted to help and make a donation to you guys as far as the fundraiser, and in turn would go right to MDA.

[Speaker:JARED_SORENSEN] Right, and if you visit mometrix.com/mda, that's M-O-M-E-T-R-I-X forward slash M-D-A, then it has Benjamin's story listed there, and then at the bottom, if you have any need for test preparation materials or you know somebody who does, then there's a catalog listed there and you can kind of browse through that and see if there's anything that you need. Or if not, then there's a place there you can donate directly to MDA, even if it's just $5. It seems like $5 wouldn't help, but if everybody gave $5, that would be really significant.

Correct.

Or at a minimum, there's a place there where you can share it on social media sites, LinkedIn, through Twitter or Facebook, and at a minimum, if people just kind of help spread the word, that would be a huge help.

That's really great. And of course, this is an ongoing thing. There's no dateline on it. It just goes on and on and on. Unfortunately, like the disease itself.

Right. There, there is actually a lot of really promising research, uh, kind of coming down the pipeline that shows a whole lot of promise, especially for Benjamin's specific condition.

Yeah.

But obviously those have to be funded, those research studies have to be funded. So that's why we have the money that is raised through this campaign earmarked to go directly toward neuromuscular research, toward, uh, finding a cure.

Appreciate you being by this morning.

Thank you very much for having me on.

Thank you, Jay. Appreciate it. Uh, and once again, uh, that, uh, number to— of course, the local number is 838-4545. Uh, and the number that you can call, uh, Mometrix is— okay, there it is right there.

Uh, 888-248-1219.

All right, I'm gonna write that down. 888-248-1219. Appreciate you being with us.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Appreciate it. All right.