Rick Cook
Foundation Recipient
Rick Cook
Rick’s Story
When Rick was a senior in high school in Baldwinsville, New York, he had enough
credits to finish out attending half days. That is when he went to work helping his
dad hang sheet rock and do drywall finishing work. When he graduated, he went to
work doing drywall finishing for a local company, before joining Painters Union
#31. For the next 14 years, he did mostly drywall finishing work, but from time to
time worked on ceiling tile grid and stucco jobs.
On January 26, 1999 Rick became paralyzed as the result of a snowmobile accident
Rick was sitting about eye level in his snowmobile, and didn’t see the dead tree limb
that had fallen across the shoreline of the trail until the last few seconds. He put on
the brakes and ducked down, but not far enough. The branch caught the top of his
helmet, pushing it back into his neck, breaking it the C4-5 vertebrae. He was 32
years old.
As a quadriplegic, his level of injury is such that he can feel down to about the top of his elbows. He has just enough movement in his right arm to use a joystick on his power wheelchair. Rick lives with his parents and pays is share of expenses with the money he receives from SSDI. As Rick says, he is on a tight budget. The hardest thing on Rick’s budget is his current wheelchair van – a 1996 Dodge Ram B-2500 with 130,000 miles on it. “The costly repairs seem never ending,” Rick said. “Now, the lift is acting up, and it is hard for my parents to manually crank the lift from the ground up to the point where I get into the van. It is nerve-racking to travel very far from home.”
Around the end of 2019, Rick learned about our foundation from a woman he had become friends with. Her mother had received a grant from our foundation a number of years ago. That led him to apply for a grant for a wheelchair accessible van that could replace his 24-year-old vehicle. Unfortunately, shortly after he made his request the coronavirus made its appearance, causing the foundation to cancel 2020 fundraising events. In April however the Service Roundtable was holding a national convention, and they partnered with the foundation for a fundraising idea. (Our foundation is the official one of the Service Roundtable) During various events at the national meeting in San Diego, convention goers were asked to match a pledge by the foundation to raise money for Rick’s van. When the funds were tallied, the President and CEO of Goettl Air Conditioning, Ken Goodrich, matched it! While that was going on, Rick started a Go Fund Me account, designating the foundation for donor funds. Between all those funds and a generous grant from our foundation, enough money was raised to replace Rick’s aging van.
The day Rick received his van, he went for a 20 mile ride, and exclaimed that the van is AWESOME! Rick sent us a note saying, “I want to thank you and your foundation, along with all the others who made this possible. You all have gone above and beyond in making my life as well as others so much better, and I just cannot thank everyone that was involved enough. I love what your foundation stands for. It is so nice to be able to see out the windows of my new van, with no more worries about whether it will make it to where we need to go. Thanks again for everything.”
As a quadriplegic, his level of injury is such that he can feel down to about the top of his elbows. He has just enough movement in his right arm to use a joystick on his power wheelchair. Rick lives with his parents and pays is share of expenses with the money he receives from SSDI. As Rick says, he is on a tight budget. The hardest thing on Rick’s budget is his current wheelchair van – a 1996 Dodge Ram B-2500 with 130,000 miles on it. “The costly repairs seem never ending,” Rick said. “Now, the lift is acting up, and it is hard for my parents to manually crank the lift from the ground up to the point where I get into the van. It is nerve-racking to travel very far from home.”
Around the end of 2019, Rick learned about our foundation from a woman he had become friends with. Her mother had received a grant from our foundation a number of years ago. That led him to apply for a grant for a wheelchair accessible van that could replace his 24-year-old vehicle. Unfortunately, shortly after he made his request the coronavirus made its appearance, causing the foundation to cancel 2020 fundraising events. In April however the Service Roundtable was holding a national convention, and they partnered with the foundation for a fundraising idea. (Our foundation is the official one of the Service Roundtable) During various events at the national meeting in San Diego, convention goers were asked to match a pledge by the foundation to raise money for Rick’s van. When the funds were tallied, the President and CEO of Goettl Air Conditioning, Ken Goodrich, matched it! While that was going on, Rick started a Go Fund Me account, designating the foundation for donor funds. Between all those funds and a generous grant from our foundation, enough money was raised to replace Rick’s aging van.
The day Rick received his van, he went for a 20 mile ride, and exclaimed that the van is AWESOME! Rick sent us a note saying, “I want to thank you and your foundation, along with all the others who made this possible. You all have gone above and beyond in making my life as well as others so much better, and I just cannot thank everyone that was involved enough. I love what your foundation stands for. It is so nice to be able to see out the windows of my new van, with no more worries about whether it will make it to where we need to go. Thanks again for everything.”