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Another school year is only weeks away, and inevitably when the time comes teachers will ask their students: “How did you spend your summer vacation?” But this year in Winchester, the roles could be reverse.
A total of 10 Winchester High School teachers and coaches participated in the third annual 70k Step Challenge on July 16 to benefit the MGH Healey Center for ALS research, a cause that hits close to home for WHS three sport coach John Fleming.
“Jen Dimartino, who was at ALS One, is now working at MGH,” said Fleming, who added that last year’s fundraiser collected money from donors for Jen’s previous employer. “She has been a tremendous supporter of countless families that have family members living with ALS. She helped my father and (Winchester native) Rick Marks get support and care through ALS One and MGH, when they were diagnosed with ALS. She has also helped us run our annual Spike Out ALS match during the boys volleyball season in the spring. She is now working at MGH, and we wanted to donate directly to them this year, because she has been a relentless advocate for more research and better care for ALS patients.”
The goal this year was to raise $7,000 for ALS, and, according to the Winchester Nine’s donor page, they have collected $6,370 in donations, even though MGH claims it has received an additional donation to bring the total to $6,600.
Contributions are still being accepted at to get to the $7,000 goal.
Those 10 participating walkers included Nick Fazio (football), Chris Noeth (boys track head coach, indoor assistant track coach), Craig Mackenzie (former rugby, football coach), Jason Cacciapuoti (former head track coach), Jared Huber (unified bowling, basketball coach), Wally Dembowski (football head coach and freshman basketball, assistant track coach), Will O’Connor (assistant football, indoor and outdoor track coach), Michelle White (WHS field hockey coach), John Fleming (boys and girls volleyball, boys basketball coach) and Izzy Grieci (WHS teacher).
Fleming said that 7 of the 10 Winchester entrants walked 30,000-plus steps, before beginning the group walk from the First House Pub in downtown Winchester to Dembowski’s house in Danvers, approximately 18 miles away, while mentioning that Nick and Craig joined them for the second half of the long-distance walk.
“It was a great bonding and sharing day for us to raise money for ALS,” added Dembowski.
The WHS football head coach mapped out the long-distance walk that’s so much easier by car, but this was for a good cause.
“We had already walked over 30,000 steps individually prior to walking with the group,” Dembowski said. “The walk to Danvers is just over 40,000 more steps. We started out at WHS at 12:30 p.m. on July 16, and eight minutes later we arrived at the First House Pub on Main Street. We departed from there at 12:47 p.m. Nobility Hill on Main Street in Stoneham was the next landmark on our walk. We arrived there at 1:42 p.m., and left 11 minutes later. We then landed at the Public Kitchen in Wakefield at 2:55 p.m., leaving there 12 minutes later at 3:07 p.m. The next stop was at the 99 Restaurant in Lynnfield, the home of great popcorn and cheap drafts. We arrived there at 4:11 p.m., and at 4:24 p.m., we were moving on to Capone's in Peabody, where we arrived at 5:40 p.m. That was a tough stretch from Lynnfield, but just before six, we were off to the Sylvan Street Grille in Peabody, where we arrived at 6:48 p.m. At 7:08 p.m. we were on our way to my Danvers house – the frozen mudslides took a bit longer to finish – and at 7:35 p.m. we were there. The last stretch was the toughest, while the entire trip took just over seven hours.”
Fleming then added in his own recollections of this special day: “We ran into a number of folks along the way at different spots, and they all shared their own personal stories and connections with ALS. A woman in downtown Winchester donated to our group after talking about losing her father in the 1980’s to the disease. She knew firsthand how terrible the disease was, and how devastating it can be. But she was also happy to hear about the progress being made (to come up with a cure). Our hope now is to continue this walk each year with maybe additional walkers joining in to raise even more money for the cause.”
It was the second straight year that this band of WHS personnel decided to make the Challenge into a fundraiser with the goal of walking 70,000 steps to raise $7,000 for ALS. Again, there’s still time to donate to ALS, and you can do so by clicking on to this link.
Joe McConnell is a longtime, award-winning sports editor for numerous North Shore publications. He began covering Winchester sports for the News in November 2024 and is currently its Sports Editor. He can be reached at editor@winchesternews.org.
