Finding purpose in pushing

The group of spectators starts to grow. The hurrahs begin to heighten.

Perry Perkins and his friend are nearing the finish line on Port Washington’s main drag in one of its signature fitness events.

They can see it. It inches closer with every step. The noise grows louder.

It is Fish Days, the highlight of summer that begins every year with the Portal Inc. Run Walk and Roll organized by the Grafton agency that serves people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

“We’re coming down the big wide street. People are clapping and cheering. You can tell they’re getting pumped for it,” Perkins said.

Then it happens.

“It is so cool when we cross that finish line. Every stinkin’ time I get a little teary-eyed. It’s impossible not to,” he said.

It’s not because Perkins completed the race. He’s happy for the Portal Inc. participant he just pushed along the route.

“They’ll raise their hands in victory just as if they were running it themselves as they cross the finish line,” Perkins said.

That is what and why he has been participating inthe Portal Inc. Run Walk and Roll, and it’s why he’s coming back for the 40th annual one this year, the same year Portal turns 60.

Perkins always had a reason to run. When he started in the mid-1980s when he was in his mid-20s, it was for his health. Then he wanted to improve his times.

“After 25 years of doing the Fish Day Five, I was looking for some other purpose to run it,” the 67-year-old Port High alum now living in the Hartland area said.

“I just started thinking the whole idea behind the run was to benefit Portal Industries.”

Inspiration struck, fittingly enough, during a run.

“I thought, ‘What can I do here to support Portal Industries better? I couldn’t care less about my finishing time anymore,’” he said.

“Maybe I could push somebody from Portal in the run, give them the experience of the run they can’t really enjoy on their own.”

He called the Portal office to see if it was possible. It turns out he went to high school with the husband of then-Fish Day Run coordinator Marlene Morgan.

“That was my ticket in,” Perkins said.

A participant was found. Then Perkins had to find something to push the man in.

“I really didn’t think this through,” he said.

In this case, no good deed goes unsolved. Morgan helped Perkins find a stroller.

Come race day, anxiety struck.

“I hadn’t had a lot of contact with people with disabilities and nonverbal people, so I was pretty nervous doing this,” Perkins said. “What if something happens? What if they didn’t want to be here?”

On top of that, it poured. It didn’t matter.

“It was just so much fun for all of us on that particular run. They were so thankful, and I was thankful for doing it,” Perkins said.

He set out to find safe strollers known as joggers. He emailed a few friends to help pay for it.

“I was really thinking about just getting one,” he said. “Two weeks later, I’ve got enough money to buy four of these things.”

Perkins again needed help.

His friends stepped up and have run multiple races pushing the joggers. Regulars over the years include Paul Schueller, Tim Neubauer, Tommy Bannon and Perkins’ brother-in-law Jim “Goose” Karrels.

One of the multiyear Portal participants has been Chris, who is nonverbal but cheers for the Milwaukee Brewers. He actually asked Portal Inc. Executive Director Carole Stuebe if Perkins and his friends were coming this year.

“He can make sounds like nobody’s business,” Perkins said of Chris. “He can make people happy.”

Perkins makes sure to have fun during the run, introducing Chris to others for high fives and doing wheelies with the three-wheeled jogger.

“They just love that. They start laughing and making sounds,” Perkins said.

“People are cheering and clapping, and there are a lot of Portal Industries people there. They know their names.”

Stuebe remembers feeling uncertain about the logistics when Perkins called in 2008. By the second year, “we were all pumped,” she said.

Perkins and his friends nicknamed themselves Pushing Our Pals (POPs), and they fit Portal’s mission of “Empowering individuals of all abilities with enriching opportunities to achieve inclusion, employment and community engagement.”

“This truly is our mission in action,” Stuebe said. “This demonstrates to others that everyone can be a champion for others in our community with differing strengths, abilities and gifts.”

For Perkins, the annual run is about the Portal participants.

“Really, it’s just about trying to give these men and women the opportunity to experience a run. It’s exciting,” he said.