CHILLICOTHE — Two Ross County prisons are the biggest givers in Ohio to a former warden’s annual walks for multiple sclerosis research, contributing more than $43,000 between them this year.
Tony Brigano has spent eight years visiting prisons across the state to raise awareness and money after his daughter was diagnosed with the disease. His yearly fundraiser makes 19 stops, and he says the Ross Correctional Institution, which gave $11,500, and the Chillicothe Correctional Institution, which gave about $32,000, donate more than any of the others.
Brigano walks with his wife, Diane, in hopes of helping find a cure. As a former warden, he says little inside the fences surprises him — but the generosity he keeps finding has confirmed what he believed all along: most incarcerated men want to help other people and give something back while they work toward rehabilitation.
He says some men donate because they want to support a cause outside the walls, while others connect with his story personally, either because they know someone living with MS or because they are fathers themselves who want the best for their children.
Brigano contrasts that response with what people outside the gates usually hear, which tends to focus on the small share of incarcerated adults who cause trouble.
For families in Ross County and beyond who are living with multiple sclerosis, the walks turn two local institutions into the state’s strongest source of support for the cause — one donation at a time.
