_4x_edited.png)
About
Our Mission
The Greenville Area Parkinson Society (GAPS) is a local non-profit organization in the Upstate of South Carolina that offers support, education, and advocacy to people living with Parkinson’s Disease, their care partners, spouses, and families.
We Walk With Everyone.
Greenville Area Parkinson Society is committed to accepting and celebrating all people regardless of ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual orientation or socioeconomic status. We seek to create an organizational culture that promotes and values diversity. GAPS strives to make inclusion central to our work of providing education, advocacy, support, and awareness. All members can live a better quality of life with inclusive and equitable practices.
"Parkinson's is a slow but inevitable process. It's hard living with it on a daily basis. The difficulty facing people with it is that they never quite know 'Can I or can't I do this today?'"
Helen Mirren
HISTORY
GAPS started in 2005 as an informal social group. Fueled by word of mouth, attendance grew. It became clear that the need for an organization was much larger than originally thought. Accordingly, in 2012, the Greenville Area Parkinson Society was formalized as a 501(c)3 non-profit by Patrick Sullivan and W. Stanton Smith. Our organization is non-medical and non-research, focusing on increasing awareness about the disease and providing resources to individuals with PD and the people in their lives to maximize their quality of life. Since its inception, GAPS' volunteers, directors, and founders have served thousands of people in our area through support groups, expert speaker seminars, social events, and on-going interfacing with the medical community to bring more movement disorder specialists to the area.
About our logo
The tulip is the commonly known symbol for Parkinson’s Disease. We had our tulip designed specifically for GAPS to appear to be in motion. In recent years, it has been discovered that mobility is the key to maintaining a higher quality of life while living with PD. Our tulip is meant to look as if it is truly walking with you.