Love for Family
and Community
Spurs ADA Volunteer

Diabetes has made its mark on Marty Gonzalez’s family, and she gives selflessly of her time and financial gifts so that fewer families will suffer from the disease. Gonzalez’s list of relatives diagnosed with diabetes is long—her mother, several uncles and an aunt who has many health complications from the disease. The loss that hit the hardest was the death of her beloved grandma Josefa “Pepa” Garcia.

“My mom was 29 years old when she lost her mother—my grandma Pepa—to diabetes,” Gonzalez says. “Pepa operated a huge dairy farm all on her own for many years, but she had to have her leg amputated at
age 64, and she didn’t live to see her 65th birthday. We lost her too soon.”

Gonzalez turned her passion into action as a volunteer chairperson of the American Diabetes Association’s (ADA) Leadership Council in San Antonio. For the past six years, she has been involved in fund raising and advocacy work, helped the ADA partner with local businesses, actively recruited other volunteers, and worked with local ADA events.

“You could say this is kind of a mission for me,” Gonzalez says. More recently she has become involved on a national level to support advocacy. She currently serves on the Community Volunteer Development Committee, in which she serves as a liaison between five ADA Chapters and the national office. Gonzalez supports San Antonio, Midland, and Lubbock, Texas, along with Shreveport & Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Gonzalez has also designated the American Diabetes Association as beneficiary of her individual retirement account. “I wanted to give in a significant way toward future research for a cure,” she explains. “Remembering the ADA through my estate plan was painless, and what better way to make a difference once I’m gone.”

Gonzalez often cites the statistic that every 21 seconds someone is diagnosed with diabetes. That amounts to 1.5 million Americans per year. “I’m going to keep fund raising so we can move that to 60 seconds, then two minutes, and someday eliminate the disease altogether,” she says. If you, too, want to be part of the cure, contact the American Diabetes Assoc-iation Individual Giving Department at (800) 676-4065, ext. 3003.

Story was featured and written for “Planning for a Cure” Volume 3, 2006 — a publication for donors and friends of the American Diabetes Association.

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