My Nonprofit Reviews

My Dad, Mark Rubin, inspires me to give to CurePSP (www.curepsp.org). This July, it will be 4 years since he died of Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP). He was my inspiration, my hero, my mentor and my best friend. He never gave up and selflessly gave of himself. PSP completely took away the Dad I knew and everything that made him who he was. I give in his memory in the hope that other people won't have to suffer like he did.

PSP is an uncommon brain disorder that affects movement, balance, speech, swallowing, vision, mood, behavior, and thinking. The disease worsens (progressive) and causes weakness (palsy) by damaging certain parts of the brain. Currently there is no effective treatment or cure for PSP.

My Dad would drive three hours to my college just to take me supermarket shopping for 30 minutes. My Dad video-taped and made audio cassettes for his car for every musical performance I was ever in. My Dad sent me and my college roommates 100 pounds of chocolate on Valentine's Day…just because. My Dad blew up life-sized versions of pictures of my children to hang on his office wall. My Dad came over to my house every day after I had my first child just to see and hold my son for 5 minutes. My Dad never got off the phone with me without saying I love you. This was the kind of Dad I had.

I first knew there was something really wrong when he fell down a flight of steps and put his head through a wall…and he didn't know how it happened. I knew it when he couldn't remember common words when he was talking to you. When he slurred his speech, when he would choke every time he ate, when he bought my Mom birthday cards for Mother's Day and forgot my birthday and didn't seem to care. I promised him that I would take care of him...that WE would figure everything out.

I give to CurePSP so that we can continue to fight for a cure and give hope to other families that are devastated by this disease…to help THEM figure out what we weren’t able to solve.