Friends fight on for lupus cure
Posted on Sun, Dec. 12, 2004

By ANN SPIVAK

The Kansas City Star

After Ginger Launey DeSalvo died last year from the most severe form of lupus, a group of old college friends continued her fight to find a cure.

The nine friends — Amy Hawley, Meg Pavlovich, Amy Ellis, Holly George, Jeannie Kincaid, Wendy Hills, Jenny Shaler, Angela Greenberg and Shelly Ross — launched Ginger's Tomorrow, the Ginger Launey DeSalvo Foundation for Lupus Research.

Last month the group held its first fund-raiser, an auction and party at Shadow Glen Golf Club in Olathe . More than 100 guests raised $45,000, which will go to the Arthritis Foundation, the Alliance for Lupus Research and oncologist Richard K. Burt's BraveWings Foundation at Northwestern University , which focuses on stem-cell research.

“We watched Ginger struggle with this disease for years,” Hawley said. “It was a wonderful night in her memory, and we were so happy it was so successful financially.”

The 10 women met in the fall of 1988 when they roomed together at the University of Kansas . Launey DeSalvo was always the one who looked on the bright side of any situation and had the best sense of humor, Hawley said.

Launey DeSalvo's husband, Chris DeSalvo, attended the fund-raiser along with Bonnie Launey, her mother, who is now an honorary board member of Ginger's Tomorrow, which is run by the nine founders in Kansas City .

Launey DeSalvo was first diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis in 1997 and then with lupus, the autoimmune disease where the body produces antibodies that mistakenly attack the cells, tissues and organs of the body. Seven years later, she lost her battle after a third attempt by doctors to use her own stem cells to regenerate her immune system.