Craig H. Neilsen Foundation awards NorCal SCI $200,000 grant
The Craig H. Neilsen Foundation, the largest private funder of spinal cord injury causes, has awarded NorCal SCI a two year, $200,000 grant as part of Neilsen Foundation’s Creating Opportunity & Independence grant program that seeks to support non profit organizations providing programs and services that are community-driven, empowering, and inclusive of all ages and backgrounds to enhance quality of life. NorCal SCI submitted its grant application, entitled “It's Within You: Life After A Spinal Cord Injury”, based on the concept of supporting 80 individuals who are within 12 months since experiencing their traumatic spinal cord injury and is designed to help support better health, knowledge and experience, as well as habits and behavior, that could lead to a better outcome for each person.
The program will enroll 40 individuals each year and emphasizes heavily on the educational aspect involving topics that every new person with SCI will experience at some point. Another component of the program involves establishing progressive exercise plans that at times will be intensive while building a foundation for continuing such activities long after the program has ended. A critical component involves peer mentoring of each individual to ensure they stay on track while providing them with a credentialed peer supporter they can be in touch with.
Our goal is to demonstrate that a better life with SCI is within you and each applicant will have a choice to make that could help shape their future and we are willing to help support them but it would need to be a partnership. Additionally, it seeks to demonstrate that such an approach does not require expenditure of tens of thousands of dollars.
Details of this program and an application will be unveiled on Nov. 2nd and we are excited to demonstrate the effectiveness of such an approach to former, current and future individuals with SCI as well as the clinicians at all the rehab hospitals in Northern California but also through the rest of the world. Stay tuned but for now, we’re grateful to the Neilsen Foundation for their trust and confidence in NorCal SCI.
Nick & Franklin, co-founders