Help Elizabeth Walk Again!

Undergoing surgery to repair damage from a car accident, motor nerves to Elizabeth’s right leg were burned at their root in the spinal column, causing her to lose her ability to walk, and having to readjust her entire life. She has seen multiple doctors and specialists to assess her potential to recover. Her best hope and THE top recommendation from multiple doctors is to undergo intensive therapy at The Motion Project, the second-best Spinal Cord Injury Rehabilitation Center in the country, which just so happens to be located in a suburb of her hometown. Additionally, later finding out that such a place opened exactly one month prior to her sustaining this catastrophic injury, it seemed providential. This may very well be her one and only saving grace in regaining the ability to walk again. So for 2024, Elizabeth has uncharacteristically and necessarily turned her primary focus towards herself and learning to walk again. But…she can’t do it without us. This kind of treatment is self-pay as insurance companies do not cover spinal cord rehab. We NEED your help. Please consider donating $200 to cover an intensive therapy session, or if your finances allow, $1200 to cover a month’s worth of therapies. Recovery for nerve-related injuries is one of the slowest and most arduous processes, but if anyone can do it, Elizabeth can. Please, rally your family, friends, or co-workers to join in together to contribute, or ask your employer to match your donations. Be creative! Make a donation now, then host a weekly donation-based ‘dress down day’ and collect the monies to put toward the cause. Gather a few friends to have a bake sale in your office and donate the funds. There is so much we can do, if we do it together.

Elizabeth has spent her life in service to others and now, more than ever, she needs US. As a child, she served her neighborhood by setting up Easter Egg Hunts, Summer Educational Carnivals with homemade learning games, and huge Haunted Houses. In twelfth grade, having completed most of her coursework, Elizabeth arranged her schedule to align her free periods and sought permission to walk over to the Intermediate School to Student Teach fifth graders half days and give one-on-one attention to children needing a boost. In college, while maintaining a top GPA and acting in the University productions, she volunteered with St. Vincent DePaul Society, Niagara’s Community Action Program, Give Kids the World, Make-A-Wish, Habitat for Humanity, local Soup Kitchens, visited nursing home residents, was a leader of Freshman orientation, an Officer for the Campus Programing Board, an organizing member of the Family Weekend Committee, the President of the Resident-Student Association, a Campus Representative for Disney’s College Program and was a supporting member of The Sierra Club and The Jane Goodall Institute.

After completion of her Master’s Degree and with a bit of teaching under her belt, Elizabeth registered for the U.S. Peace Corps and was shipped off to east Africa where she would teach nine different courses over 6 semesters, five courses per semester, without textbooks and little vocabulary in common. Here, Elizabeth lived as a true villager for almost three years, giving continuously in any way her community or locals needed her. Upon her return to the U.S., she became the City of Buffalo Project Manager for Border Community Service, helping prepare residents for man-made and natural disasters and driving for Meals on Wheels on her lunch break. Even COVID-19 lockdowns did not stop her. Acutely aware of the needs of recently resettled refugees and immigrants in 2020, she fundraised to create 36 life-saving baskets valued at $100 each full of food staples, basic medical and safety supplies, and educational toys and games so the newest American families could stay safely at home. In 2021 societal needs changed as human trafficking and domestic violence were on the rise due to pandemic stressors and mental health crises, so Elizabeth jumped into action organizing a “Backpacks of Love” campaign. To help the folks who escaped these dangerous situations, she fundraised and elicited donations creating: Backpacks of school supplies, Tote bags with items to start at a first/new job, Buckets filled with cleaning supplies to help a family settle in a new apartment, and Baskets of various toiletries for those who had to leave without these necessary possessions. Then, in 2022-2023 Elizabeth was part of launching a grass-roots Mentorship Project for theatre students at a local university whose students are often underserved, come from diverse backgrounds, or who have limited resources. This impacted over 30 area students and professionals as they learned from one another and reinvigorated themselves after the great pause in the arts due to COVID-19.

Elizabeth has chosen to fundraise for Help Hope Live in part because it assures fiscal accountability of funds raised and tax deductibility for contributors. Individual and group donors can be sure the funds will be used to directly pay medical expenses to assist in her recovery. To make a tax-deductible donation to this fundraising campaign so Elizabeth can one day walk again, write “in honor of ELIZABETH ODDY” on the MEMO line & mail a check to:
Help Hope Live
2 Radnor Corporate Center, Suite 100
100 Matsonford Road
Radnor, PA 19087
(Donor preference is important to her & Help Hope Live. Please specify in writing IF you wish for your name or donation amount to be kept private).

or, click on the GIVE button today! Everything helps.

For more information, please contact Help Hope Live at 800.642.8399.

Thank you for your support!
Friends of Elizabeth Oddy