WHITEHALL TOWNSHIP, Pa. \u2014 One man. One motorcycle. One mission.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s how Patrick Cornell describes his effort to raise funds and awareness for myotonic muscular dystrophy, a muscle disease that can affect nearly every muscle in the body, including the heart and lungs.<\/p>\n
Cornell\u2019s wife, Janice, has family ties to the disease. Her mother, Thelma, and sister, Kathy, both lived with myotonic dystrophy before passing away. Her other sister, Diana Popik, also has the disease and is still living, along with some of her cousins who are also affected.<\/p>\n
Janice and her family previously organized the MDA Muscle Walk under the name \u201cFarmer\u2019s Daughters\u201d to support awareness and fundraising efforts, but the event was paused during the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n
That pause ultimately helped spark Cornell\u2019s latest mission.<\/p>\n
Taking to his 2025 Indian Pursuit motorcycle, nicknamed \u201cPappy,\u201d Cornell set out on a ride across the country to support research for the disease.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome days were worse, some days were great. But Pappy never let me down, never left me stranded,\u201d Cornell said.<\/p>\n
His original goal was to raise $125,000 for the Myotonic Dystrophy Foundation by riding 125,000 miles across the country.<\/p>\n
But after reaching the mileage mark, the fundraising target still hadn\u2019t been met.<\/p>\n
So, Cornell kept riding.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn day 73, I broke my collarbone. People with myotonic dystrophy don’t get to quit. They don’t get to go; I’m not doing this today. They have it. Good day, bad day, it doesn’t matter. I was riding for them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Nearly a year later, Cornell has ridden more than 200,000 miles and surpassed his $125,000 fundraising goal.<\/p>\n
\u201cVery, very, very proud of my husband. Very proud of this bike. Very proud of the Indian motorcycle Pappy for keeping my husband safe while he was out there,\u201d Janice Cornell said.<\/p>\n
Cornell now plans to continue attending motorcycle rallies across the country as he continues raising money for myotonic dystrophy research.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WHITEHALL TOWNSHIP, Pa. \u2014 One man. One motorcycle. One mission. That\u2019s how Patrick Cornell describes his effort to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":199481,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,3783,5705,88421,6728,88419,88420,88415,88418,88416,88417],"class_list":["post-199480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-awareness","tag-charity","tag-cross-country-ride","tag-fundraising","tag-indian-pursuit","tag-mda-muscle-walk","tag-motorcycle-ride","tag-muscle-disease","tag-myotonic-dystrophy","tag-patrick-cornell"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199480\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}