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Team Jenny group sets fund-raiser for Alzheimer's © 2004 The Republican Company. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission. HOLYOKE - Team Jenny, a group that has organized around Jean A. Tudryn, a 77-year-old city woman with Alzheimer's disease, has organized a fund-raiser for the Alzheimer's Association Saturday 9 a.m.-4 p.m. at Hampton Ponds Plaza, 1029 North Road, Westfield. Tudryn's granddaughter, Shelley L. Knightly-Roberge of Claremont Street, started the group because she cares for Tudryn in her home and would like to see a cure for the disease soon. Jenny is Tudryn's nickname. "I don't want my kids to have to care for me," Knightly-Roberge, 30, said yesterday. "We have to find a cure." To that end, she has started Team Jenny, which consists of a group of her friends and Tudryn's daughter, Debra M. Knightly of Holyoke. Proceeds from Saturday's event will be donated to the Massachusetts Chapter of the Alzheimer's Association in Springfield. The Alzheimer's Association is a national group that raises money for research and provides support for people with the disease and their families and caregivers. Saturday's event will include a bake sale, a tag sale, $5 hair cuts, raffles, face painting, and barbecued hamburgers and hot-dogs. Team Jenny also plans a Memory Run Aug. 7 and a spaghetti dinner Sept. 9 at the Holyoke Elks Club. For more information call Knightly-Roberge at (413) 374-0149 or visit Team Jenny's web site at www.teamjenny.org. Checks may be made out to the Alzheimer's Association and sent to Knightly-Roberge's home at 33 Claremont Ave., Holyoke, 01040. The Holyoke Giants will donate some of the proceeds from a game Sunday 7 p.m. at MacKenzie Field with the Keene (N.H.) Swamp Bats. Knightly-Roberge said her group will present their local chapter with the money it has raised during a Memory Walk, Sept. 26 at Stanley Park in Westfield. When her grandmother was widowed three years ago and needed constant care, Knightly-Roberge moved her into her house, with her children, Emily, 8, and Brennen, 4. Knightly-Roberge, who is a personal trainer at Curves for Women in Westfield, hires people to care for her grandmother while she is at work. Tudryn also attends a day program for Alzheimer's patients at Hawthorn Services Inc. in West Springfield three times a week. Knightly-Roberge said her grandmother has very good physical health, but has the mind of a 4-year-old. If she tells her grandmother to go to her room she would go outside.
© 2004 The Republican Company. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.
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