BLOOMFIELD After witnessing a friend suffer from the debilitating effects of Lou Gehrig's disease, a Bloomfield couple has decided to help their friend and others fight the disease by raising funds and awareness through a walk-a-thon and motorcycle run.

"Six years ago we didn't know anything about the disease and now we're raising money for it," said Carolyn Chavez.

Chavez said through her own dealings it seems that most people have heard of Lou Gehrig's disease, also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, but few know much else about the degenerative disease or how it affects those who suffer from it.

"If you say diabetes, everyone knows what you're talking about, but when you say ALS, no one knows anything," Chavez said.

ALS is a fatal neurodegenerative disease that attacks nerve cells and pathways to the spinal cord and brain. When the nerve cells die, voluntary muscle control dies along with them. In the later stages of the disease, the victims are totally paralyzed, but their minds remain alert. Eventually the progressive degeneration of motor neurons from the brain leads to death.

Carolyn and her husband Setan Chavez first encountered ALS when their friend Ray Slone was diagnosed with the disease six years ago.

The couple watched ALS transfigure Slone from an active minister in the Word of Life Church in Farmington, to a man who has lost his ability to speak and move.

"It's like being a prisoner in your own body, and there is no cure," said Slone's wife Lorvella Slone. As her husband's health deteriorated, the couple moved two years ago from Aztec to Ohio to be closer to their family, but she said she was elated to learn her Bloomfield friends had started a fund-raiser for ALS in the Four Corners area.

"Their work has just blown me away," Slone said.

The walk-a-thon and motorcycle run organized by the Bloomfield couple is part of a nationwide campaign called Walk to D'Feet ALS.

The walk and motorcycle run will talk place at 7 a.m. Sept. 21. The route for both walkers and bikers begins at the Plumbers and Steam Fitters Local Union 412 and ends at Boyd Park. Walkers will travel a total of six miles, and Setan Chavez will lead motorcyclists on his Harley-Davidson on a course which runs up through Durango, Colo., and back down to Farmington.

"This year our main goal is to inform people about the disease and next year we'll set goals for money," Chavez said.

All money earned by the fund-raiser's participants will go to the ALS Association Western Ohio Chapter.

Walk-a-thon information: (505) 632-1468.

Motorcycle run information: (505) 598-4193.