Media Release
Radnor Station Building 2, Suite 320
290 King of Prussia Road
Radnor, PA 19087
267.514.7221 / 866.507.7222
www.theaftd.org
Contact:
Angie Maher
[email protected]
267.514.7221 x2530
September 2012
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
How BBQ Sauce Gives Life to Disease Research
Philadelphia, PA─ Bill Fehon is well known in the little borough of Bryn Athyn, PA for two things:
teaching high school at the Academy of the New Church for more than 30 years and his original
barbeque sauce. He began making his sauce in the early 1990s; over the years, friends and family
would ask for more sauce as soon as they finished up the bottle they received at the holidays. As the
demand for sauce grew, Bill started to think about making a business with his recipe. Before Bill
could realize the dream of selling his sauce, his brain began to deteriorate.
“Bill is one of the most cheerful and physically fit 58-year-olds,” said his wife, Diane. “But after
spending a few minutes with him as he repeats elephant jokes and silly comedy skits, it’s easy to see
that he has the personality of an eight-year-old. He struggles to recognize common foods or read
simple words. He can’t make his beloved sauce because he can’t follow his own recipe.”
FTD is a degenerative brain disease, affecting the frontal and temporal lobes and striking in a
person’s 40s-60s. It can affect a person’s ability to speak, to the point that they become mute. It
can affect a person’s behavior--eating off strangers’ plates, inappropriate sexual advances, a
voracious appetite for sweets in particular, a drastic change in personality and speaking in repetitive
phrases are a just a few examples. It can affect a person’s ability to move—people often fall or are
confined to a bed or wheelchair because of muscle rigidity akin to ALS or Parkinson’s disease. At its
cruelest, FTD is a combination of these symptoms, and the disease seems to affect each person in a
different way.
Determined to do something positive with Bill’s diagnosis, his wife and five sons took Bill’s
barbeque sauce recipe and made his dream come true—they sold their first bottle of Bill’s Best BBQ
Sauce in May 2011. Since then, the family went through the process of USDA-certifying the sauce
as organic, and more than 4,000 bottles have been sold on amazon.com as well as 12 stores in the
Philadelphia area.
In the process of creating the business of Bill’s Best BBQ, the Fehon family decided that a greater
good needed to come from their labor. For every bottle of sauce sold, the Fehons donate 10% of
the profit to the Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration (AFTD). A nonprofit organization
based in Radnor, AFTD advocates for more funding into the causes and treatments of
frontotemporal degeneration, as well as provides caregivers and patients with a dependable source of
accurate, reliable information and support.
“It’s important to my family and me to help raise awareness about this disease,” said Diane. “We’ve
chosen to do this through our barbeque sauce. Each bottle label tells the story of Bill, the sauce and
the disease. Our hope is that people will take the time to read the story and learn about FTD.”
On Friday, October 19, small bottles of Bill’s Best BBQ Sauce will be given out as favors at AFTD’s
“Care & Cure Event,” the organization’s 10th anniversary celebration at the Pyramid Club in
Philadelphia.
“We’re thrilled to feature Bill’s Best BBQ Sauce as a take-away from the event,” said AFTD
Executive Director Susan Dickinson. “FTD is not a faceless disease…Bill represents tens of
thousands of people around the country struggling with FTD. When families like the Fehons step
forward to make a difference, the entire FTD community moves closer to finding care and a cure,”
said Dickinson.
The Care & Cure Event begins at 6:00 p.m. and features specialty food stations by Susanna Foo,
Plate Restaurant & Bar, Sansom Street Oyster House and Yellow Juice Bar, as well as live music and
an auction. Tickets are $125/person. Anyone who wishes to attend the Care & Cure Event may
purchase tickets on their website: www.theaftd.org.
For more information on FTD or the Care & Cure Event, please visit www.theaftd.org or contact
Angie Maher at [email protected] or 267.514.7221.
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The Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration (AFTD) is a not-for-profit organization created in 2002, originally named The Association for
Frontotemporal Dementias, to advocate for more funding into the causes and treatments for frontotemporal degeneration (FTD), as well as to provide
caregivers and patients with a central place to find information and support. Mounting evidence that these debilitating disorders are more prevalent than was
originally thought and the limited information and support available for caregivers and families, along with the lack of funding for research, inspired a group of
dedicated caregivers, clinicians, and researchers to create an organization to address these unmet needs.