Spinal Cord Injury Ontario

Toll-free: 1-877-422-1112

Email: info@sciontario.org

sciontario.org

A couple is hugging, smiling, and looking to the camera. The husband is on a wheelchair. The logo of Spinal Cord Injury Ontario is on the corner.

Spinal Cord Injury Ontario

Toll-free: 1-877-422-1112

Email: info@sciontario.org

sciontario.org

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, Spinal Cord Injury Ontario’s founders returned to Canada and worked to make Ontario a place where people with spinal cord injuries and other physical disabilities can live the life they choose.

Today, Spinal Cord Injuries Ontario supports people impacted by spinal cord injuries with education, advocacy, and ongoing services for those impacted by spinal cord injuries. 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. 

Click to see video transcript

Peter Athanasopoulos:

The Spinal Cord Injury Ontario was formed in 1945 to build a fully inclusive Ontario where people with spinal cord injuries and other physical disabilities can live the life they choose. Having a spinal cord injury and experiencing paralysis can be extremely life-altering. Rekindling passion for life after paralysis is devastating and our organization works closely with family members and the individual with the spinal cord injury to help them realize that there is life after spinal cord injury.

Spinal Cord Injury Ontario has benefited from a very amazing partnership with Federated Health Charities since 1984. The really cool thing about our partnership is Federated Health Charities’ dollars is unrestricted. So it gives us the ability to use these funds in a very unique way that’s not restricted in any way to create the greatest impact possible for people with spinal cord injuries.

On average there’s a new spinal cord injury every day in Ontario. There’s approximately 33,000 people living with spinal cord injuries in Ontario. The cost burden to a spinal cord injury on average to an individual is $1.1 million. People cannot afford to live independently with a disability. They rely on Charites like Spinal Cord Injury Ontario to help facilitate resources or provide resources so people can live the life they choose.

 

Benjamin Kwarteng:

I got into a car accident in 2008 while visiting Africa for my mother’s funeral. I did the surgery so when I woke up I didn’t even know what was going on. And they told me that I got in a car accident and I’m currently paralyzed and didn’t know how my paralyzed movement or the kind of function that I have at the moment if I was going to get any improvement going forward. It took a couple of years for me to actually be comfortable in my own skin, to actually accept the changes in order for me to actually say, OK, this is what it is, I need to find a way around it to actually be part of society and [pull myself out of it? 00:02:12].

To be honest, without your support a lot of us will fall through the gap. It is very unfortunate that some of us that are in the wheelchair require so much assistance. When it comes down to my wheelchair I did receive standpoint [to? 00:02:27] as well, because without that I would not be able to be mobile. For example the price of my wheelchair that I’m sitting in right now is about $52,000. It helps me strengthen my bones, it helps me increase my blood flow, it helps me with my bowel bladder function. So it helps in so much ways, but unfortunately it doesn’t get covered so most of the money will have to come from fund raising or me savings and asking family members for additional standpoint.

So our future donors, it would be very, very grateful that you could donate. And without your support it will be next to impossible for us to contribute to society and be as independent as we choose to be.

 

Peter Athanasopoulos:

If you’re on the fence in giving a donation to Federated Health Charities, I just think, just stop thinking and just do it. Right? Like, I think this organization has a track record of demonstrating its value, its importance, its authenticity towards helping people and making the greatest impact.

So if you want to take a moment and think about impact, and take a moment around how you as an individual can make a difference, just go on the Health Charities’ website and see all the wonderful things that they’ve been able to accomplish.

[End of recorded material 00:03:47]

“Spinal Cord Injury Ontario has benefited from a very amazing partnership with Federated Health Charities since 1984,” says Peter Athanasopoulos, Spinal Cord Injury Ontario’s Director of Public Policy. “The really cool thing about our partnership is Federated Health Charities’ dollars are unrestricted. So, it gives us the ability to use these funds in a very unique way that’s not restricted in any way to create the greatest impact possible for people with spinal cord injuries.”

“To be honest, without your support, a lot of us will fall through the gap. It is very unfortunate that some of us that are in the wheelchair require so much assistance,” says Benjamin Kwarteng, who was left paralyzed after a motor vehicle collision in 2008. “For example, the price of my wheelchair that I’m sitting in right now is about $52,000. It helps me strengthen my bones, it helps me increase my blood flow, it helps me with my bowel/bladder function. So it helps in so much ways, but unfortunately, it doesn’t get covered so most of the money will have to come from fundraising or my savings and asking family members for additional support.”

“If you’re on the fence on giving a donation to Federated Health Charities, I just think, just stop thinking and just do it,” Peter says. “I think this organization has a track record of demonstrating its value, its importance, its authenticity towards helping people and making the greatest impact.”

Learn more about Spinal Cord Injury Ontario at Spinal Cord Injury Ontario | Supporting and advocating for and with people with a disability – (sciontario.org).

Donate to Federated Health Charities today to support a healthier Ontario and help people impacted by spinal cord injuries thrive.

Click on the button below to make a donation to Spinal Cord Injury Ontario through Federated Health Charities

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For general questions:

Sarah Wood
Executive Director
437-925-6227
sarah.wood2@ontario.ca

Address

315 Front St. West, 5th Floor
Toronto, ON
M7A 0B8

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For general questions:

Sarah Wood
Executive Director
437-925-6227
sarah.wood2@ontario.ca

Address

315 Front St. West, 5th Floor
Toronto, ON
M7A 0B8

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