This year’s Federated Health Charities campaign runs from April 3, 2023, to June 30, 2023. During the campaign, we will be highlighting each of our 21 charities and how they work to improve the health and well-being of people across our province.
Our third charity in the spotlight is Spinal Cord Injury Ontario. Spinal Cord Injury Ontario was founded in 1945 by World War II veterans who had received spinal cord injuries. At a time when most people with spinal cord injuries were unlikely to survive for more than a year after their injury, the founders of Spinal Cord Injury Ontario returned to Canada and worked to build a fully inclusive Ontario where people with spinal cord injuries and other physical disabilities can live the life they choose.
Spinal Cord Injury Ontario helps people with spinal cord injury move from injury to rehabilitation and back into the community. Their services include regional care coordinators to help people navigate the healthcare system, a peer support program that connects individuals who are newly injured with trained volunteers with lived experience of spinal cord injury, employment services to help people living with a spinal cord injury overcome barriers to finding employment, and an equipment access program.
On average there’s a new spinal cord injury every day in Ontario, and approximately 33,000 people live with spinal cord injuries across the province. Spinal cord injuries are massively life-altering – not just physically and mentally but financially. On average, the cost burden of a spinal cord injury to an individual is over $1 million. Accessing the equipment needed to live life with a disability can be overwhelming and a serious financial challenge for many individuals and families and they rely on Spinal Cord Injury Ontario to facilitate or provide what they need.
Without your support, a lot of us will fall through the gap
Federated Health Charities has worked with Spinal Cord Injury Ontario since 1984 to deliver excellence in service, support and advocacy for and with people with spinal cord injury so they can live the life they choose in a fully inclusive Ontario.
To learn more about Spinal Cord Injury Ontario and the programs they provide, please visit Spinal Cord Injury Ontario.
To make a payroll pledge or donation to support Spinal Cord Injury Ontario and Federated Health Charities, please visit Federated Health Charities.
