Gorilla Massage Fund Swells as Golfers Swing

(L-R) Richard Ottalagana, Ken Schirmuhly, John Cogan and Neal Wiesner, who together developed the Gorilla Massage Fund Charity Golf Tournament, which provides multiple sclerosis patients with massage.

In August the second annual Gorilla Massage Fund Charity Golf Tournament near Rochester, New York, raised $33,000, tripling the 2006 total. Though massage therapists set up chairs and tables under a tent on the first hole and gave weary golfers massages after their rounds, that wasn’t why 79 golfers participated. They came to support the Gorilla Massage Fund, which connects financially-strapped patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) to massage therapists and acupuncturists. Insurance consultant John Cogan and massage therapist Craig Danehy founded the organization and named it for the wild golf swing of Cogan’s golf partner who has MS.

Though nontraditional treatments could help people with chronic pain, these treatments were not recognized by insurance companies. “What we try to do is bridge the gap with the insurance companies,” says Danehy. “People with chronic pain, who are on disability and are strapped financially, don’t have the ability to pay for massages.”

Danehy quickly gathered a network of therapists who agreed to discount their services, just as doctors often do under an insurance umbrella. Patients, nominated by therapists, are selected by a medical committee for support. The Gorilla Massage Fund pays 50 percent and the patient pays 50 percent.

The fund focuses on MS patients, but Cogan and Danehy want to expand. “We want to go into the realm of rheumatoid arthritis and cancer. I think it’s just a matter of how much money we get and what the ability is to tap into the different associations in town,” says Danehy.

They are also getting calls from other cities wanting to start a similar fund. “We’d like to move it out to other cities,” says Cogan. “It’s a simple idea.”

Sometimes simple ideas carry the seed of big things, and the Gorilla Massage Fund has the potential to help a lot of people in pain.

—Janie Franz