Margarita Connelly

Family and friends of Rita Connelly are raising money for the nonprofit Help Hope Live to fund uninsured medical expenses and other expenses associated with her disability such as a modified wheelchair van.

Rita has chosen to fundraise for Help Hope Live in part because Help Hope Live assures fiscal accountability of funds raised and tax deductibility for contributors. Contributors can be sure donations will be used to pay or reimburse medical and related expenses.

Rita lives in Charlotte, NC with her three adopted children – Catryna from China and Elsabet and Abayneh from Ethiopia. She also has her furry kids – Coco the Great Dane and Esther the Frenchie. Rita is originally from NY and was born with Spina Bifida. As a young person, Rita performed in community theater for over 17 years as the only disabled person. She regards the people she grew up with in the theater community as the reason she is feisty and is as outgoing as she is today. They never looked at her disability and between that and her loving mother who did the same, she grew up to be independent. Despite her disability, Rita says that she has had a normal life. She worked as a legal assistant for approximately 25 years before becoming ill with an unknown illness. For ten years she went undiagnosed and required frequent hospitalizations and blood and iron infusions missing many days from work. This illness, now known as a bleeding disorder that is not related to her disability, made it impossible to continue her work. During this time, she also lost hearing in her right ear which still baffles medical personnel as it is unknown why this occurred. After leaving her job at Bank of America, she took the opportunity to go after the degree she had wanted since she was 15 years old – occupational therapy. While still awaiting a diagnosis and going through treatments, she participated in a hybrid program which was partially at home and required monthly visits to Williamsburg, VA for clinicals. Also during this time she also was travelling to her daughter’s cheer competitions all in the Southeast. Rita would do anything for her children often feeling weak, but never letting that stop her. During her schooling after a test that had been performed many times, she found a doctor that actually found her rare illness and to this day, she still requires iron infusions and occasional procedures, but it is manageable. At the end of schooling, clinicals required her to move to Columbia and Fayetteville for 8 week intervals to do work in a subacute rehab facility and an outpatient occupational therapy clinic. There, she proved to herself and others that being in a wheelchair does not mean you don’t have other strengths, often having to help others transfer from their wheelchairs or help them position in bed, along with providing much needed therapy.

Rita passed her boards in 2022 and is now in the process of starting her mobile occupational therapy business. After seeing adults in nursing homes and other disabled individuals not getting the compassionate care they needed, she is devoted to helping people age in place, make sure individuals receive the therapy they need without being gaslit by the medical community or just not given the tools they are needed due to the inability of providers to spend enough time to help them. The biggest goal for Rita is to make sure all individuals feel independent and empowered like her to be who they want to be, no matter what their age or ability is.

Although Rita feels she is “normal” in many ways, she relies on aids to assist her in her life. Rita uses a wheelchair and other adaptations to her environment in order to perform tasks. The biggest and most expensive of all is a wheelchair van that can cost thousands above a typical van. Currently, Rita’s van is broken and without it, she is unable to travel to clients’ homes in order to provide therapy. Because transferring is difficult into any other vehicle and a typical vehicle cannot accommodate her power wheelchair, she says she feels more “disabled” than she has ever felt. All Rita wants to do is live her normal life and although she is a person that does not like to ask for such things, it is nearly impossible to navigate a disability without a little help. Her final statement when asked about this fundraiser is “All I want to do is help others, be with my children and enjoy a life that looks normal to me, but I need the tools to do that.

To make a tax-deductible donation to this fundraising campaign, click on the Give button.

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

Thank you for your support!