June 18, 2025
A Father's Plea
Matthew Rodreick
This Friday, June 20th, my son Gabriel is headlining a benefit concert and virtual auction for U2FP. The concert is happening in Minneapolis, but you can participate in the virtual auction from anywhere. All proceeds benefit U2FP’s work to restore and expand federal and state funding for functional recovery research. There is a lot of history and emotion wrapped up in this event for me, and I wanted to take a minute to tell you about what it’s taken to get where we are - and why it’s so important to preserve and expand the legislative funding we’ve won.
After my son’s injury in 2008, friends and family emailed me all kinds of information about SCI (overseas stem cell clinics, scientific publications, etc). One of those messages was a link to U2FP’s Working 2 Walk Symposium. I was intrigued and eventually attended the conference in Phoenix during the fall of 2010. I met scientists, advocates, representatives of SCI foundations and of course U2FP’s leadership team. I was a bit overwhelmed, buried in my laptop, taking notes, collecting business cards and inspired by all the collaboration and work happening to accelerate novel treatments for SCI.
One thing that hung with me after returning from that symposium were the stories of SCI community members who had advocated for targeted research funding through their state legislatures. Since I don’t run in circles of wealth - and the scale of need far exceeded an annual gala or golf tournament - I wanted to be bold and explore this opportunity to leverage millions of dollars per year towards SCI treatments.
This began a four year campaign that brought together the SCI community here and resulted in the successful passage of the Minnesota SCI/TBI Research Grant program. Someday I’ll write a more detailed piece about our long journey through the legislature full of starts, stops, confusion and political puzzles to be solved. However, I do want to briefly pause and let you know that state Sen. John Hoffman - who was the victim of this past weekend’s terrible assasination attempt - was a true champion of our efforts and carried our bill into law. I learned so much from him and took those lessons into our subsequent legislative campaigns. We hope and pray for a speedy and full recovery for him and his wife.
Since passing that first bill in Minnesota 10 years ago, we have passed three more state funding bills that have contributed over $40 million to SCI research. These state dollars have led to multiple clinical studies (like the EStand Trial and Cell Top study), trials and intervention strategies that have restored function after SCI, helping significantly reduce neuropathic pain, restored movement, bladder, bowel and sexual function in over 200 people with SCI.
One study, funded by our legislative work in Washington state, was a critical piece of ONWARD’s recent FDA approval for transcutaneous stimulation (listen to our podcast about it with researcher Chet Moritz here).
But here’s what I really want you to know: all this work has been funded by you. Foundations will not provide grants for work that involves political lobbying. Furthermore, many nonprofits are actually afraid to do any legislative advocacy for fear of losing their 501c3 status. But we have always viewed this legislative work as a critical and effective piece of our mission. The return on investment is just too big to ignore (eight to one for the states themselves; incalculable for those living with the injury). It's why we have committed so much of Jake Beckstrom and Jason Stoffer’s time to these efforts, without having fully secured the funding they need. We must grow the power and influence of our community in the sphere of public funding.
This gamble has almost broken us a few times, both emotionally and economically (it is very hard right now). But we continue to press on because our mission to accelerate curative treatments for SCI is what drives us. Now we’re facing the elimination of federal SCI research dollars, while threats to our state funding have cropped up in Minnesota and Ohio (but good news on the Minnesota front coming soon!).
Our Rock To Restore Research benefit concert on Friday June 20th is our latest attempt to marshal funds and enthusiasm for the movement to defend and expand smart SCI research funding. U2FP has been leading a coalition of SCI organizations to restore federal SCI funding while casting a vision for effectively and successfully translating discoveries to treatments. Money raised at this event will help us continue to devote staff time to leading this charge.
We need your voices and we need your support. If you’re in town please come out and join the show. If you’re not able to come, please support our work by donating directly or bidding on items in the virtual auction (which includes some cool stuff: a fully accessible AirBnB on the Florida coast, SCI artwork, stylish apparel, cool gear and more).
My son, Gabriel (aka Freaque) will be headlining the event. Podcast listeners have heard snippets of his music over the years. Check out the full version of his song about living with a SCI: Me and My Bones.
Join us!
