Business Innovators Radio - The Inspired Impact Podcast with Judy Carlson-Interview with Bonnie Dannels, Founder/President of Paul’s Mystery Ship to End ALS Foundation

Episode Date: January 31, 2025

Bonnie Dannels is the Founder/President of Paul’s Mystery Ship to End ALS, a nonprofit foundation. Bonnie created this foundation because her husband Paul of 45 years was diagnosed with ALS. He lost his battle after a short 13-month journey fighting this horrific disease. ALS is a fatal disease with no cure. Once diagnosed, there is no turning back. Paul and Bonnie have a large family of 3 children (2 daughters and 1 son) and 11 grandchildren. Each member of her family was deeply affected by this disease. Bonnie is blessed to have a large circle of family and friends who support her; each one of them were also deeply affected as they supported Paul throughout his stages of ALS.Prior to Paul’s diagnosis, Bonnie had a career in management, sales, and service for independent insurance agencies. Her career was abruptly interrupted in January 2019 when Paul was diagnosed with ALS.Bonnie is a Colorado native, born and raised in Timnath, CO. She graduated from Colorado State University and lived in Ft. Collins until her family moved to Castle Rock in 1982.Bonnie is an avid walker & hiker. She plays pickleball and does some type of physical activity daily. Her newest activity is snowshoeing.Bonnie is actively involved in the Castle Rock community, Castle Rock Chamber of Commerce, Womenade, Plum Creek Church, and First United Methodist Church.Website: www.paulsmysteryship.comFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/PaulsMysteryShip/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pauls_mystery_ship/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bonnie-dannels-210869102/**********************************************************Judy is the CEO & Founder of the Judy Carlson Financial Group. She helps her clients design, build, and implement fully integrated and coordinated financial plans from today through life expectancy and legacy.She is an Independent Fiduciary and Comprehensive Financial Planner who specializes in Wealth Decumulation Strategies. Judy is a CPA, Investment Advisor Representative, Life and Health Insurance Licensed, and Long-Term Care Certified.Judy’s mission is to educate and empower her clients with an all-inclusive financial plan that encourages and motivates them to pursue their lifetime financial goals and dreams.Learn More: https://judycarlson.com/Investment Adviser Representative of and advisory services offered through Royal Fund Management, LLC, an SEC Registered Adviser.The Inspired Impact Podcasthttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/the-inspired-impact-podcast/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/the-inspired-impact-podcast-with-judy-carlson-interview-with-bonnie-dannels-founder-president-of-pauls-mystery-ship-to-end-als-foundation

Welcome to the Inspired Impact Podcast, where dedicated female professionals share how they inspire impact every day. Authentic stories, passionate commitment, lives transformed. I'm your host, Judy Carlson. Welcome to today's episode of the Inspired Impact Podcast. Today's guest is a Colorado native who founded the company, Paul's mystery ship after a devastating family situation. I am excited for her to share her story with you today. I'd like to introduce you to Bonnie Dannels.

Welcome to the podcast, Bonnie. Thank you, Judy, and thank you to all of the women that are a part of women aid in our community of support. I am very honored and humbled to be able to share my story. I thank God every day for his presence in my life. My life has changed drastically over the last six years. The world has changed over the last six years. I want to share a little bit about how my life has changed and what I have done since that episode in my life. Six years ago, I was leading a life with my husband, Paul. It was filled with,

with daily hustle bustle, our work schedules, social events. One of our daughters and her three children were living in our home. We were assisting in parenting those children. We were busy. Life was busy. Our house was busy. We were looking forward to when we could both retire and start enjoying travel and all those things that you do.

However, all of that changed for us on January 18th of 2019. when Paul was diagnosed with ALS. ALS is a fatal disease. There is no cure. Once you're diagnosed, there is no turning back. I remember going to the car after receiving the diagnosis, and we both started Googling on our phone, as we had no idea what ALS was at the time.

After Googling for a few minutes, we looked at each other and just both broke out in tears as we realized that this was really an event. in our life that was going to change our future forever. Returning home from the diagnosis, we were surrounded by our family and friends, both of who sat and supported us that day. We have a large family. I have three children, two daughters, one son, and 11 grandchildren, and many, many, many friends. From that moment on, we were never alone.

friends and family visited our home on almost a daily basis. As Paul's disease progressed, it became very evident that our house was not handicap accessible. It was not possible for us to remodel our home. So the decision was made to sell our home. I was not able to really prepare our house to put up for sale. We had built our home 30 years prior to that. So we had 30 years of life in that home. Our daughter and her children's lives were in our home.

Our friends came in and packed up our house, took things to goodwill, took things to storage, gave things away to other people, and got us prepared to be able to move into our home with one of our daughters for the remainder of Paul's life. Paul's physical journey was horrific. He was diagnosed with Bulbar ALS, which affects your ability to talk, breathe, and swallow. Progression was quick and it was ugly. In the end, I was maintaining eight machines for Paul's existence. As I look back on all that, Paul was really the lucky one. He was lucky in the fact that he had a fast progression, even though it was so hard to watch day to day. It was what was best for him as life became so difficult and so hard for him to exist from day to day. Paul handled each day with grace and dignity. He spent his time researching, writing his story, writing his own funeral service, picking his songs, explaining how those songs related to his life. He talked a lot about his journey. That's how Paul's mystery ship came to be.

He spoke about, Paul was born and raised in San Francisco, California. And so once he was diagnosed, he came up with the term that he was heading off on his mystery ship, which there's a song by Blues Image, Ride Captain Ride, which talks about a gentleman heading off to the sunset on his mystery ship. And so that became Paul's motto. And that is why Paul's mystery ship is the name of our nonprofit. Paul mentored everyone who came to visit him and who

came to share time with him. He ended up mentoring them, helping them with their faith journey, and reassuring them that he was okay and that he had accepted the fate that he had been given. He did that through speaking until he lost his voice. And once he lost his voice, he would do it on an iPad. And eventually his hands became too weak to be able to do that. And people would communicate with his facial expressions and his eyes, which was incredible for me to watch. Following his death, all of us felt lost and felt alone.

There was no help. within the Castle Rock community as he traveled his journey. Help for us. Doctors were all up in the Swedish area. The ALS Clinic were all at Anshoods, up north in Westminster. The support groups were way up north and it was really hard to navigate as it was really hard to get Paul out and about. So it became an inspiration to me that we needed to have some services and some assistance down in our Casarok Douglas County community. The knowledge I gained through learning how to use machines and how to do caregiving and to be able to maneuver day-to-day life granted me strength that I never knew I had. I learned that I could conquer anything that was in front of me if I just included the power of prayer and let myself accept help from other people. Grief is an unpredictable journey that you

are never prepared for. My journey of grief began during the time of COVID, which made it a little bit even harder to maneuver and determine my steps from day to day. Moving out of darkness and begin navigating a new world is hard. It was hard to accept that I was now alone, that I was going places alone, that I was being alone at night, and navigating the reality of what had happened to my world that was filled with so much security and my home and my spouse. We had been married 45 years. Trying to look ahead to what my future was like

became a dark place and became very hard. But it was ultimately my choice how I wanted to move ahead and how I wanted to proceed, past the guilt of what had happened, past the feeling of why was I living and Paul had lost his life. why why was that happening and I your faith you start questioning I questioned my faith I

question a lot of why why why but I began to realize that there was a purpose for my life there was a reason that I was going to move ahead and move beyond this incredible life the fear of the sadness was in my forefront of my mind every day. We started as a family honoring Paul's life with a memory walk in 2020, which was during COVID, so it was a small walk. We purchased a bench along Plum Creek Trail. We decided after a couple years of a small walk that there was a genuine need for, a nonprofit and so we formed Paul's mystery ship to end ALS, a 501c3 nonprofit organization

with a board of family members. Our ultimate goal was to make a difference in the lives of others through scholarships, through financial assistance, and supporting, being able to support families, whether they needed a visit, that they wanted to talk about it, cry about it. I wanted to be that person that wasn't in the medical field, but was in more of the reality-based of all of the things that I experienced and learned. It's baptism by fire. There's no question about it.

Since we formed our nonprofit, we have expanded it to include all neuromuscular diseases, which are diseases such as MS, Parkinson's, ALS, and there's many others, but it has broadened our horizons to be able to offer scholarships to people in that entire organization of diseases. We currently have four events a year. We offer a, this will be my second annual pickleballoosa pickleball tournament. It will be my sixth annual sixth annual walk. We partner with representatives from Parkinson's and MS, and we do two combined events for the benefit of ALS, MS, and Parkinson specifically. We do a summer pig roast event, and we do a starlighting event. Those have been well received by the community, the outreach within this community, and the people that have

become familiar and recognize our ship and the words Paul's mystery ship is something I am incredibly blessed by. We have expanded our relationship with CSU and I'm currently in the negotiating stages of how we can begin to broaden our scholarship opportunities and be able to partner with CSU directly and somewhat turn it into a combined opportunity within their colleges. We're working with hosting a men's basketball watch party here in Castle Rock to bring awareness to Paul's mystery ship. We are one of the participants in the grit run and the spring football scrimmage up in Fort Collins. There is an outreach program in Fort Collins. However, that is home to me. I have a lot of

family in Fort Collins. I bleed green and gold for my CSU Rams, and it's a direction that we plan to go in 2025. There is a new neuromuscular clinic opening at Reunion Rehab Hospital in Inverness, and Paul's Mr. Ship is a clinical partner in that organization, and we will have ongoing multiple programs within our partnership with reunion. They will host the Ice Bucket Challenge. I don't do that at my walk or my pickleball tournament, so we partner with them because that is a nationally known event that associates you with AOS. The community outreach, and support that the town of Castle Rock, all of our wonderful family, friends, and this community, the Chamber of Commerce, and all of the different organizations within our town, has been an

incredible support for me, for my family, and for Paul's Mysteryship. And I would thank everyone involved for what they have done to assist us and get us on our path. I personally, I personally, have learned that you can't stay stuck in the dark space. You cannot stay where you are in that space because you cannot heal in that space. Talking about my story and sharing my journey has helped me to redefine my ambition and my purpose. My faith guides me every day. I have made the choice to live my life as God's spirit guides. me. I am thankful, I'm grateful, and I'm richly blessed by what life has brought for me. I find joy and

happiness and want to share my story as an example of how God leads us. I would like to end in saying God bless each of you. Thank you for your support, for your community connections. I hope you have a great day. If you would like additional information about either Paul, Mr. Ship or myself or my family, feel free to reach out to me. My phone number is 720-935-8,000. My email address is Bonnie. Danels. I'll spell that. It's D-A-N-N-E-L-S at gmail.com. And our website for the mysterieship is www. www.paw-W-W-W-W-Pol's Mystery. ship.com. Thank you very much for this opportunity. God bless each of you. Thank you, Bonnie. You are a blessing to everyone who listens. Thank you so much for joining us on our podcast today.

Thanks so much for joining us for the Inspired Impact Podcast. To listen to past episodes, please visit theinspiredimpactpodcast.com.