Kelly Ripa, Mark Consuelos fundraise for University of Michigan women’s health
FRANKLIN, MI – This week was Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos’ 28th wedding anniversary. Ripa decided what she wanted to do was bring Consuelos in front of a crowd of women for a University of Michigan women’s health fundraiser.
“I thought what better way to celebrate life then to bring him to an estrogen festival,” Ripa told a crowd of more than 100 the morning of May 2 at the Michigan Medicine Women’s Health Luncheon.
The couple and co-hosts of the show “Live with Kelly and Mark” opened the fundraiser at Franklin Hills Country Club in Oakland County. Parents of a current Wolverine student, the two revved up the crowd at the event aiming to raise $700,000.
Ripa was the luncheon’s keynote speaker last year, talking about her family’s connection to the University of Michigan since their son Joaquin Consuelos became a varsity wrestler three years ago. Mark Consuelos told the crowd Thursday that the love for the university is “in his bones” since becoming a Wolverine parent.
“Being at University of Michigan has been such a blessing to us,” he said. “Not only the school, but we feel like the whole state of Michigan has welcomed us every time.”
As news has spread of the couple’s Wolverine ties, more studio audience members have started to wear maize and blue, they said. Ripa joked that she hears a “Go Blue” everywhere, even when the couple enjoyed an outdoor trip to a remote part of Iceland.
“It’s gonna sound crazy, because it was winter and dark,” she said. “We’re paddling out on the ocean to see if we can see whales, but instead we saw a person who yelled ‘Go Blue’ at us. The one person we saw in four days!”
Last year’s luncheon raised $596,000, according to Michigan Medicine officials. The goal this year was $700,000, said Luanne Thomas Ewald, chief operating officer of C.S. Mott Children’s and Von Voigtlander Women’s hospitals.
The final tally surpassed the goal, as day-of-giving and a live auction resulted in about $750,000, officials said.
Ewald said the money will go to a women’s health innovation fund, which aims to jumpstart the work of junior researchers to explore areas such as prenatal care and music therapy.
“An idea may not get funded by the National Institutes of Health because it may have not been fleshed out yet,” Ewald said. “So we get them some money to go after some research to try to help with moving women’s health forward.”
Some issues such as prenatal care haven’t been significantly reexamined since the 1970s, Ewald said, so funding research is necessary to push the field forward.
Some of the fundraising came from live auctions, which included items like a one-week trip to Siesta Key to sharing a suite at Michigan Stadium with Ripa and Consuelos.
Organizing the luncheon at Franklin Hills is an effort to reach out to university and Michigan Medicine donors in Oakland County, Ewald said.
“We do so many things at the Big House that we’re like ‘Let’s take this on the road,’” she said.
For Ripa and Consuelos, their son is entering his final year as an undergraduate next fall. Since Joaquin has become a student, Consuelos commented that all Wolverine sports are on a tear, from football’s national championship to hockey’s trio of Frozen Four’s.
“Mark actually said to me last time, ‘I feel like I’m personally responsible for all these wins,’” Ripa said.
“I said something like that,” Consuelos said.
The couple finished remarks by saying they hope their son will go to graduate school, joking that it could spur more sports success.
