Schools
BHS Senior Matt White Challenges You to Participate in Mikey's Mission
Matt White hopes the community will join his CrossFit fundraiser to help his 11-year-old brother who battles Type 1 Juvenile Diabetes.
senior Matt White is full of energy. Maybe you’ve seen him bussing tables at on the weekends, going for five mile jogs around town, cleaning-up on the high school basketball court or partaking in his latest venture, CrossFit. He’s so energetic that his basketball teammates call him Matty CrossFit.
This tall and slender teenager is channeling his athletic prowess into a CrossFit fundraiser to help his little brother Mike White, 11, who suffers from Type 1 Juvenile Diabetes. He’s inviting the community to participate in a CrossFit challenge consisting of two different workouts – one for novice participants (scaled) and one for advance members (prescribed).
The event, Mikey’s Mission, will be held at Shoreline CrossFit on Nov. 12 at 8:30 a.m. and all CrossFit members as well as those not belonging to the gym or any CrossFit gym are welcome to participate. Same-sex teams of two can register for $40 – all proceeds go to Juvenile Diabetes Association. To register, please email Lauren@shorelinecrossfit.com and indicate both team member’s names, and which division (scaled or prescribed) you plan to compete in. You may pay at the door with check or cash. All participants will get a t-shirt for their donation and the top three finishers for both male and female teams will receive trophies. Spectators are also welcomed to donate at the door.
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The event will challenge teams to a series of dead lifts, handstand push ups, box jumps, running and more. In between workout sets, participants have a two-minute rest. If you want to lean more about the physical challenge, check out the event details on Shoreline CrossFit website.
Matt is looking forward to the event, which qualifies as his Senior Capstone Project for BHS, and he’s proud to note that more than half of the 50 spots for teams to register have already been filled. Though he’s concentrating on the upcoming fundraiser, the genesis behind the project, his little brother Mike, is at the forefront of his mind.
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Diagnosed at age 4, Matt said his brother has been struggling with JD nearly his whole life and it’s tough to watch him miss out on things because of the condition, he shared. “He misses out on activities because of his diabetes,” said Matt, “like sleepovers.” He can’t “roam free” like other kids his age, he added.
The most challenging moment in Matt’s life, he commented, was when Mike went into a seizure during the night. “It was the scariest thing I have ever seen,” he said.
Over the years Mike has been in and out of the hospital a few times said Matt. “It was very scary obviously to have your little brother in the hospital hooked-up to IVs.”
Sympathetic for his little brother, Matt said he personally has a sweet tooth and it’s hard to watch his brother be deprived of ice cream and the things he so freely enjoys. The constant, insulin pump that Mike totes around, he said, is another story.
“It feels like a constant bee sting,” Matt said of his brother’s pump needle, adding that his mom, Michele White monitors his brother’s blood sugar at least eight times a day, which includes overnight checks.
Matt says his mom Michele talks to the nurses at Francis Walsh Intermediate School where Mike is in sixth grade, several times a day to check in. Matt said he’s hopeful that new medicines and technology will less that burden for his mom and Mike in the future.
“They are always coming closer and closer to a cure,” said Matt, but laments that there’s still no magic bullet for Type 1 JD.
“With the money,” Matt said of fundraising for the Juvenile Diabetes Association, “I am hoping technologies will advance and find a cure.”
Of the current advancement in insulin pumps, Matt said his family is waiting for a right model of the latest version to be released so Mike can have the most streamline and easy to use device. “It’s like iPhones,” said Matt, “they improve and improve.”
For now, Matt said Mike tries to live life like a normal boy. “He doesn’t ever stop,” he said of Mike who plays more than three sports including lacrosse, basketball and cross-country.
When asked why he matched CrossFit with his brother’s charity for his Senior Capstone Project, Matt said, “I did the two things that I love.”
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