Madison with her dad, Gary, at the 2026 MVP Awards Celebration.
Editor’s Note: This article is adapted from Madison’s 2026 MVP Awards Celebration speech.
Ten years ago, my life changed with a phone call.
My dad called to tell me he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease (PD). I remember feeling terrified. At the time, I didn’t really understand the disease. I just knew it was something Michael J. Fox had. That night I stayed up researching everything I could about Parkinson’s, trying to understand what it meant for my dad and for our family.
During that search, I discovered The Michael J. Fox Foundation (MJFF) and its grassroots fundraising program, Team Fox. I’m not a scientist, and yet this was a way someone like me could still help move research forward.
The only problem was there wasn’t a Team Fox group in New Orleans.
So, the next day, I called MJFF to ask how I could get involved. They encouraged me to start a group myself and that’s how Team Fox NOLA began in 2016.
What initially started as a handful of my friends rallying behind me and my family has grown into something so much bigger. Today, Team Fox NOLA is a community of people who were once strangers but are now connected by a shared mission to cure Parkinson's disease.
One of those strangers was my videographer, Nathan. After my wedding, he emailed me. Now, when your wedding videographer emails you after the wedding, you usually assume it’s about editing timelines or your highlight reel.
But Nathan’s email said something very different.
He had filmed the speeches made during our reception and heard that my dad has Parkinson’s. In his email Nathan courageously shared that he had recently been diagnosed with early-onset PD himself, and he didn’t know anyone else living with the disease.
So, we connected.
Fast forward to today, Nathan serves on the Team Fox NOLA board, started an early-onset Parkinson’s support group and even climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in 2025 to raise money for MJFF alongside another one of our other incredible board members, Tasha.
That’s the kind of community this has become — one that shows up, steps up and refuses to quit. And that same spirit has carried Team Fox NOLA through every challenge we’ve faced. When COVID-19 hit and hurricanes disrupted our annual fundraising event, we didn’t stop. We hosted virtual workout classes and even sold fox-themed masks made by one of our members. The mission kept us going.
But for me, the reason behind that mission is my dad, Gary.
My dad is one of the goofiest, most loving, generous and hardest-working people I know. He’s the kind of person who makes people laugh, who shows up for everyone around him and who faces life with optimism even when things are hard. He is also one of the bravest people I know. He is my hero.
When someone you love is diagnosed with Parkinson’s, fundraising stops being just about supporting a cause. It becomes deeply personal. I’m not just fundraising for research. I’m fighting for my dad — and for all the dads — so that no other daughter has to get the phone call I got.
Fundraising has allowed me to turn fear into action and hope. Because when I look at the work being done by MJFF, I see real progress being made. I see a research pipeline moving faster than ever before. And I see a future that could look very different from today.
But hope isn’t just in the research labs, although the science is incredibly exciting. Hope is Team Fox: ordinary people doing extraordinary things to raise money and awareness and push us closer to a cure.
As Michael J. Fox himself has said, “Cures are not going to fall from the sky. We have to climb up and get them.”
Team Fox has given me the chance to fight back against Parkinson’s for my dad, and I will keep climbing until the day we reach a cure. When we do discover that cure, it will be because of the unstoppable Team Fox community.
And I cannot wait to call my dad and tell him that together — all of us — helped make it happen.
