Moats to participate in Fight For Air Climb at Busch Stadium
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At the 2019 Fight For Air Climb, the “Hot Legs” team (Kathy Drea, Amy Huber, Jenny Moats and Lori Younker) poses for a photo.
(Photo courtesy of Jenny Moats)
Elyse Clayton
Breeze Courier
TAYLORVILLE — Some spend their Saturdays off relaxing, watching TV, spending time with family or maybe getting outside to enjoy the weather. But this Saturday has a lot more in store for Christian County local Jenny Moats and hundreds of others.
On Saturday, June 4, 2022, Moats will attend the American Lung Association’s Fight For Air Climb at Busch Stadium in St. Louis, MO. This will be Jenny’s third Fight For Air Climb, having previously climbed in 2019 and 2020.
“The American Lung Association website’s main page has ‘Why We Climb,’ and one of the bullet points says, ‘Every step gets us closer to a world without lung disease,’” Moats said. “This is my hope.”
All of the money raised goes to education, advocacy and research for improving lung health and preventing lung disease. The American Lung Association runs programs like LUNG FORCE, which invests in lung cancer research funding; the COVID-19 Action Initiative, which funds respiratory research; Lung Action Network, which advocates for key lung health issues; Asthma Basics, which helps educate people about asthma and asthma management; Better Breathers Club, which educates and supports people living with chronic lung diseases and their caregivers; and Freedom From Smoking, which helps people quit smoking for good. Find more information at lung.org.
“I think it’s a great association,” Moats said. “They do so much advocating. I can see just with Lori [Younker] and her team how passionate they are about the American Lunch Association. I’m kind of drawn to it for personal reasons, too.”
Moats lost her mother-in-law, Mary Moats, to emphysema on March 3, 2001. Her father, Tom Frevert, passed of advanced stage non-small cell lung cancer on February 22, 2018.
“I didn’t really know that much about the climb,” Jenny said. “I think I was talking to Lori [Younker], and at the time my dad was really sick and then passed, and we were talking about the fundraiser that they raise this money for, and I was like, ‘What do you have to do?’ So I became an active participant after my dad passed in February.”
Jenny runs with a team from the American Lung Association in Springfield, who call themselves “Hot Legs.” On that team is Lori Younker, National Senior Director of the American Lung Association. Jenny also works with Younker on a fundraiser within the Taylorville School District, where Jenny works as a nurse. Each year, the Taylorville elementary schools raise money by participating in the Change Makes a Difference coin drive, and the class that raises the most in each school wins a pizza party. In May of 2022, the district raised $3,492.64.
On their event website, the American Lung Association outlines participant options for “every type of climber,” emphasizing that “how you climb is up to you,” saying that some people climb for the top time, race for their personal best or just take it at their own pace.
“I just hope that I can walk when I’m done,” Jenny laughed. “I am not one of the power climbers who do it as many times as possible in a certain amount of time. I’ve never done it at Busch Stadium, so I’m not entirely sure what all this entails, but before, it was just you get to the top, so I just try my best to get up there as fast as I can. I don’t know what my time was; it wasn’t great, but I always made it to the top.”
