Photos of Gwendolyn's family at the Texas State Railroad Park

Gwendolyn Strong, a 20-month-old toddler, delighted in hearing the train whistles and taking photos in front of The Little Engine That Could™ at the Texas State Railroad Palestine Depot on Tuesday.

Gwendolyn's parents Bill and Victoria Strong of Santa Barbara, California brought their little girl to Palestine as part of their 5,000-mile round trip drive to raise awareness for Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA), a paralyzing and terminal disease. The Strongs are making their trip across the country in an RV armed with banners, corporate sponsors and a call to action to end SMA.

More photos can be found on the Herald-Press Photo Gallery.




The “Sponsor-A-Mile to END SMA” drive (http://SponsorAMile.com), in which each mile driven is sponsored at $10 a mile, has a goal of raising $50,000. All proceeds will go to the Gwendolyn Strong Foundation (http://gwendolynstrongfoundation.org), which seeks to shed light on this deadly childhood disease and to fund SMA medical research that specialists and the National Institute for Health (NIH) believe is within five years of a cure.