our story
Our foundation has grown into more than just raising awareness and money. We have annual comedy shows, soccer, basketball and lacrosse clinics, and dinners with both live and silent auctions. In 27 years, we have donated $1.9 million to our community and to research at The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis.
Our Impact
we started small
the ricky palermo foundation
When we first started our foundation, we started small, hosting a cut-a-thon and selling T-shirts that raised a total of five thousand dollars for The Miami Project. In 1996, with the help of my family and close friends, we started The Ricky Palermo Spinal Injury Golf Tournament. Our first year we set a goal to raise five thousand dollars. By the end of the day we had raised eleven thousand, exceeding our goal by over fifty percent. Fast forward to today, our tournament is one of the largest in Western New York with 200 plus golfers, raffles, fun, and even a helicopter golf ball drop. Our foundation has grown into more than just raising awareness and money. We have annual comedy shows, soccer, basketball and lacrosse clinics, and dinners with both live and silent auctions. In 27 years, we have donated $1.9 million to our community and to research at The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis.
Ricky’s Story
“Look Out!”
Those were the last words I remember saying as my good friend’s truck started to go off the side of the road. The police said that we rolled 3 to 5 times down the steep hill, before the truck came to rest on all four tires. My buddy had fallen asleep while driving and although we were only going about 15 mph the truck continued to roll because it had a roll bar, which kept the cab from caving in on us. When it was over, I found myself hanging out the passenger door window and as I looked towards the road I could see my hands hanging in front of me as they dripped blood from the cuts I had. While hanging upside down, I noticed that I could not hear my buddy and I didn’t know if he was dead or alive. After what seemed like forever, I heard and felt the truck wiggle around as he woke up from his concussion and came over to see if I was okay. I told him he had to help me get out of that position and run for help in an area where neighbors are few and far between.
As he gently pulled me back into the truck bench seat, I realized that something was really wrong. The next time I totally woke up, I was in a hospital room where I found myself in a neck brace hanging face down, with machines and wires everywhere both in me and around me. I saw what I thought must be a nurse or somebody waiting for me to come to. I said hello and she instantly got down on the floor so she could look me in the eye and tell me where I was and that I had been in an accident that caused me to suffer a dislocation of my C4, C5, and C6 vertebrae and they were doing everything they could to keep me from being paralyzed. I had just turned 21 and that news made me think of the actual definition of the word NEVER!
“You don’t know my family”
After more than five months of therapy they called my family in to let us know that there was nothing more they could do for me at the hospital, so it was time to go back home and live the best that I could. Back in those days (1981) the spinal cord injury doctors had the “tough love” attitude so the doctor in charge began to give us statistics of what will probably happen to my world. He said, “my friends would stop coming around after about a year”, “my siblings will try to be there for me but their lives will take them in another direction” AND “my parents would probably be getting divorced”, but then he said the “good news” is “people are now living 8 to 10 and sometimes 12 years with a spinal cord injury.” At that moment my dad loudly spoke up as he told the doctors, “YOU DON’T KNOW MY FAMILY!”