Cedar Point Country Club will be hosting a golf and tennis fundraiser on Thursday for a cause very near and dear to the heart of its director of golf T.J. Young.

Young and the Ladies Golf Association enter their third year of putting on the event called “Teed Off at MS,” designed to raise money for multiple sclerosis research. The event has raised over $50,000 in just the last two years alone.

“It sure makes me feel good, because it’s really in honor of my wife,” Young said.

His wife, Kathy Young, was diagnosed with MS in February of 2008.

“It’s an autoimmune disease that affects 400,000 people in the United States, 2.5 million people worldwide,” she said. “It’s different in every single person, and it’s different every day for each one of those people.”

There are different types of the disease, and Kathy Young has what is called relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis, meaning it comes and goes. She said the first time she experienced it, her symptoms included double vision and Bell’s palsy.

She said she is thankful the effects have been small for her, but going completely back to normal is not guaranteed, and she said her vision has remained affected.

With the good health she has, Young has been far from idle since being diagnosed. A year after the fact, she began participating in 30-mile MS Challenge walks that raised over $27,000.

Young has also started a website. After being diagnosed, she searched the Internet to learn about the disease.

“Everything online was horrific,” she said. “I just felt like I should go pick out my wheelchair right then.”

She vowed to create something more upbeat to try and help people not to be so scared, particularly those who have been newly diagnosed. Her site, which chronicles her fight with the disease, is FUMSnow.com.

To children and those who are more sensitive, she explains that it stands for “Fundamental Understanding of Multiple Sclerosis.”

Young is currently working on a series of e-books that help answer questions that have been asked regarding particular issues related to MS. The first book deals with bowel and bladder issues.

The e-books will be available on her website, as will a podcast that she has been putting together. It will feature a variety of interviews, including one with a couple that has MS, as well as other patients and a researcher, who shares the progress being made to find a cure.

All the money from Thursday’s tennis and golf event will go to the Race to Erase MS foundation.

“Within the foundation there is something called Center Without Walls, and it’s a coalition of some of the top researchers in MS,” Young said.

The coalition is a refreshing contrast to the way research can progress on other diseases.

“Oftentimes what happens is one researcher might have a puzzle piece that another researcher is looking for, but they have to guard their funding resources,” Young said. She added that the woman who formed Center Without Walls thought that “if she should bring them together and require them to work together, it might advance the science more quickly.”

“They’ve been doing that, making great strides,” she said.

Young is driven to do all that she does because of her two young daughters and for those more heavily affected by MS.

“I just do it because I can, and I’ll do it as long as I can, for those who can’t,” she said.

The round robin tennis portion of Thursday’s event starts at 9:30 a.m. Registration for the golf tournament runs from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., during which time tennis players and golfers can eat lunch.

A few spots are still open for the golf tourney, which has a shotgun start at 1 p.m. Immediately following the tournament, there will be a dinner buffet in the clubhouse, during which scoring will take place, along with the presentation of awards and a silent auction.

The auction will feature donated items from members and businesses in the area, including artwork, a weekend in Ocracoke, N.C., and a rental house.

There will also be door prizes.

For those who cannot attend but would still like to donate, call T.J. Young at 238-3554.