By Emily Younker
Globe Staff Writer
JOPLIN, Mo. —
Regular viewers of the annual telethon for the Muscular Dystrophy Association will likely notice a familiar face today in Stephanie Vaughn.
Now 21, Stephanie has been a staple of almost every local MDA telecast since she was born, raising money each year for “Jerry’s kids” with her older siblings, said her mother, Deborah Vaughn, of Joplin.
“We just did it and made a habit of it,” she said.
The Muscular Dystrophy Association is a nonprofit agency dedicated to curing muscular dystrophy and related diseases by funding research activities. The annual Labor Day telethon is hosted by entertainer Jerry Lewis, who is the association’s national chairman.
Deborah Vaughn said she had contributed to the MDA even before Stephanie was born, but it was after her daughter’s birth that giving became more meaningful.
Stephanie has both lissencephaly, which is the underdevelopment of the brain in a fetus, and pachygyria, which means thick folds of the brain. The disorders mean that Stephanie thinks like a 3-year-old and talks like a 1 1/2-year-old, her mother said.
She said it has been particularly touching to watch Stephanie interact over the years with children who have muscular dystrophy, a group of diseases that weaken a body’s muscles.
“They are so accepting of each other where they are,” she said. “If the whole world could watch this, (they would) understand that everybody has something they need help with.”
When Stephanie was younger, she and her mother collected donations for the MDA by going door to door in their neighborhood. Stephanie’s asthma now prevents her from doing much walking, so Deborah Vaughn simply writes a small check to the association for her daughter to present during the local televised segments of the nationwide telethon.
Stephanie doesn’t understand where the money goes, her mother said, but she has participated in enough telethons to recognize — in photos from previous years — the fish tank in which children will dump their contributions during the local segments.
Deborah Vaughn said she doesn’t know how much she has contributed to MDA over the years and estimates that it’s “probably not much.” But every little bit counts, she said.
“If we can (contribute), everybody ought to be able to do it,” she said. “It’s kind of like, ‘What’s your excuse?’”
The telethon began Sunday night and will continue until 6 p.m. today. Broadcast from Las Vegas, it will air locally on KODE-TV.
Telethon history
The first telethon, held in 1955 at Carnegie Hall in New York, raised $600,000 for the MDA. Pledges and donations last year brought in about $60.5 million for the association.
