The ALS walk is a walk to raise awareness and money for ALS that Ms. Murphy has led at CHAH for 16 years. ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects your motor neurons, causing muscles to twitch, weaken, and/or waste away. CHAH raises money for a program called Ride for Life. The RIde for Life program supports patient services, helps patients with ALS and raises money to find a cure. This year will be the last year of the walk.
“It’s been 16 years and been an amazing journey,” said Ms. Murphy. “CHAH has raised over $350,000 for the cause. We’ve gotten the whole school involved. We’ve gotten the Yankees involved. We’ve supported all these patients for all these years. But I think there comes a time when we might want to move on and somebody else might want to take up this opportunity to raise money with the students at CHAH for another cause.”
Ms. Murphy, the 6th grade ELA teacher, may be ending the ALS walk, but fear not–she’s here to stay.
“I’m going to support whatever new organization some teacher wants to bring into the school for our students to support,” says Ms. Murphy.
Though she doesn’t have any specific ideas, nor does she want to start a new organization herself, she says, “I would like to see an organization where someone in the school, maybe a family member or themselves, had a need. It could be a disease or any need that they have that they want us to support them on.”
This is the last walk and it’s important to participate. Ms. Murphy describes the walk as, “we Support patients with ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease. We go from Monument Park to Yankee Stadium. That’s where Lou Gehrig was a baseball player. He was a New York Yankee. He got the disease, and that’s why it’s named after him. And we have a ceremony there, and then we walk through the streets of Washington Heights, cheering that we want to have a cure for this terrible disease.”
Enjoy our last walk (or first if you’re a 6th grader) and make this one memorable. Be prepared for next year and the new wave of ideas coming at us.
Nicole • Apr 29, 2026 at 2:10 pm
I learned alot about ALS from your article. This is very informative and entertaining. I also adore Ms Murphy even more. We need more teachers like her that care.
David Falciani • Apr 29, 2026 at 9:05 am
This is a great article. Thanks for covering this and recognizing the impact it’s had on the community and the good it’s done over the years.
Jean Ellen Murphy • Apr 28, 2026 at 6:18 pm
Malia,
Thank you for writing such a beautiful article about the ALS walk. I hope we have a great day this year on May 26th. I really appreciate you writing this in the paper for the school to read.
Thank you on behalf of my family and patients with ALS.
Best,
Ms. Murphy
Michael King • Apr 28, 2026 at 4:45 pm
Great article and great idea Ms Murphy!