Step It Up is founded and inspired by Project Walk.

We all need to support inspiration and determination!! There needs to be more and more rehab centers/facilities to support the recovery of persons with paralysis!

One such new facility is founded in 2009! People can make things happen with determination. Please check this out. Maybe you will be inspired and determined to start a center/facility in your area to overcome the evident lacking.

STEP IT UP RECOVER CENTER 407-878-3757
http://www.stepituprecovery.org/

This facility was started by the mother of my daughter's roommate at Shepherds. Amanda is C5-C6 incomplete. After leaving Shepherds, her family and community promoted many fund raisers for her to go to California to attend Project Walk.

Liza writes: The news comes differently for each family. For me it was a jarring phone call in the middle of the night with news that my 17-year-old daughter Amanda was being airlifted to a nearby hospital after a car accident. During the foggy race to the hospital there was nothing on my mind other than to be with my daughter and wanting only for her to be alive. There were ER doctors waiting for me. I learned that my daughter, who had just removed her seatbelt to recline in the passenger seat to sleep, soon became a human missile within the car. Her neck was broken. Confirmation that Amanda was paralyzed and would never walk again cruelly broke me from my dreamy stupor. It was replaced by desperate panic for my child. Confusion. Anger. Sorrow. And uncertainty.
Instantaneously I had gone from having an active, well-adjusted, daughter who loved her family, friends and participating in dance, to a battered, bed-ridden daughter, unable to sit up, feed herself or be in control of her bowel or bladder function.

In the immediate days and weeks that followed, Amanda was fitted for a wheelchair. We were informed our goals for regaining Amanda’s independence and complete mobility were unrealistic. We searched out what we felt was the best program in the world for those like Amanda. She made miraculous progress in the program, only to have our insurance limit reached too soon. She has much work ahead of her.

This horrible reality is similarly faced by over 11,000 families each year. After the immediate shock of Amanda’s accident in April 2007, we did not know where to go after her benefits exhausted. There are very few options for recovery, especially in Florida. A person living with a spinal cord injury is overwhelmed. They need recovery, hope, encouragement and a reason to wake up everyday.

This is why we founded Step It Up Recovery Center. We are a nonprofit organization established to help those suffering with a spinal cord injury (SCI) improve their daily living – by regaining function and perhaps even walking again. Our program is modeled after the highly successful Project Walk® in Carlsbad, California. We will use Project Walk’s® specialized, aggressive and comprehensive exercise based program named The Dardzinski Method™. This is a proven methodology for SCI recovery and extends the program’s reach and affordability to Florida residents and those on the eastern coast of the United States.

Step It Up Recovery Center aims to improve the quality of life for those suffering from a spinal cord injury with repetitive movement, cardio and aggressive exercises developed by Project Walk.
If you have goals of recovering function and getting out of your wheelchair, we encourage you to stop by our facility. We are located at 508 Central Park Drive, Sanford, Florida. Applications may be mailed to the facility.
We gratefully acknowledge the Harper Family Foundation for their support and funding to the Step It Up program.


As Mahatma Gandhi said, "Strength does not come from physical capacity; it comes from an indomitable will."