Some leaders of Gainesville will be locked up on Tuesday, but not for any wrongdoing; they will be taking part in the Muscular Dystrophy Association’s Gainesville Lock-Up.

The Gainesville Police Department, the Hall County Sheriff’s Office and the Oakwood Police Department will take business leaders to the MDA jail at Gainesville’s Georgia Mountains Center. Gainesville’s "most wanted" will spend one hour in jail and make calls to friends and business associates to help bail them out. All donations will go to MDA to help fund local programs.

These "jailbirds" will have their fingerprints and a "mug shot" taken. Most of them already have been trying to raise their "bail," but when they arrive at the Georgia Mountains Center, they will continue to network and make phone calls to solicit more donations. They will also receive a meal donated by Outback restaurant and will be returned to work in limos.

The 2007 Lock-Up in Gainesville raised more than $63,000 for MDA, and organizers expect this year’s event to be equally successful.

Money raised during this event will support local children and adults with neuromuscular disease, as well as clinics and programs such as the MDA clinics at Emory University and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Scottish Rite and the MDA summer camp at Camp Twin Lakes.

The funds will also support MDA’s efforts to continue serving more than 1,800 families in the Atlanta and North Georgia areas by providing assistance in the purchase and maintenance of wheelchairs, leg braces and speech communication devices, as well as research aimed at curing neuromuscular disease.