Gambit: 40 Under 40, June 10, 2019
Meet the latest group of 40 people under 40-years-old making a difference in the New Orleans area.
Photo courtesy Crista Rock
From the Gambit:
In 2016, Mark Raymond suffered a spinal cord injury that left him a quadriplegic.
A year later, he visited an exercise facility in California designed to help people with severely limited motility walk and crawl. Louisiana offers few resources for people living with paralysis, so in 2018, Raymond founded the Split Second Foundation (SSF), a nonprofit dedicated to breaking barriers to health for the physically disabled. He has widened his mission to include people with other disabilities.
“I was diving into the numbers, and I realized that I can’t leave out people with strokes,” Raymond says. “I can’t leave out people who’ve lost a limb because of diabetes — you’re talking about four people a day.”
Raymond and SSF hope to open their first exercise facility by the end of the year, using donations from events such as SSF’s second annual Dependence Day Gala on June 28 ( www.splitsecondfoundation.org/dependence-day). He plans to expand geographically and add mental health and case management resources.
“Going back to the hospital and talking to people with injuries like mine and helping them through the darkness [was crucial],” he says. “It can be really gloomy in there, especially when you’re hearing ‘never’ from doctors. That was where I transformed hope into action.” — KATHERINE M. JOHNSON
