A special donation

Jonas Monnin originally comes from alpine skiing and is now a passionate freerider. When he had to cut short his season due to an ankle injury, he was looking for a project to keep his body and mind fit. His somewhat crazy idea: a tour on an electric handbike from his home in the Jura to Zinal in the Valais to draw attention to the purpose and activities of the Swiss Paraplegic Foundation (SPF) and to raise money for the foundation.

The impressive figures: 3 days, 257 km, 4000 m altitude gain. Congratulations on this outstanding achievement.

Thank you very much for this somewhat crazy, but very inspiring and special fundraising campaign.❤️

In June 2020, Nico Schmid had an accident while swimming with friends. A dive left him with the diagnosis of tetraplegia at the age of 22. He then spent time at the Swiss Paraplegic Centre for his rehabilitation.

To thank the Swiss Paraplegic Foundation for its support after his accident, Nico and his friends came up with an idea for a special fundraising campaign. On 8 October 2022, they organised a charity run around the Rotsee lake and donated all the money raised to the Swiss Paraplegic Foundation.

We are delighted when former patients find their way to a new life and use a fundraising campaign of this kind to show their appreciation and thank the Swiss Paraplegic Foundation for its support. We would like to thank Nico and his friends for this special donation.

Claire Baumgartner is 71 years old and a long-standing member of the Swiss Paraplegic Foundation. In her free time she sewed butterflies for the patients of the Swiss Paraplegic Centre.

Each butterfly is unique. She wants to add joy and colour to day-to-day life in the clinic and to wish all patients a great deal of courage and strength. 

We would like to thank Claire for this fantastic fundraising idea and for her efforts on behalf of people with a spinal cord injury. 

In mid-March, Samuel Shabi's friend Alex sustained a spinal cord injury in an accident. Although this significant event in Alex's life has not changed anything about their friendship, it changed Samuel's holiday plans. Together with four friends, he founded the Marcher pour aider association. The 20-year-old set off on 14 July 2020 to support people living with a spinal cord injury. He walked across Switzerland for three weeks for Alex. 
He collected donations for his friend on the 390 kilometres of the Via Alpina hiking trail. He would like to donate some of the money from this sporty and touching heartfelt project to our foundation.
We are extremely impressed by “marcherpouraider” and eternally grateful for the 4450 Swiss francs we received from this fundraising campaign. We would like to wish the five friends and Alex all the best for their futures.

Since being crushed by a tree he was felling, Peter Hofstetter has known what it feels like to fight his way back to life. He is incredibly impressed by what happens at the Swiss Paraplegic Centre and was able to benefit from the wealth of experience available in Nottwil. For this reason, he decided to say thank you in a very special way.

As the owner of the “Emscha” cheese dairy, he wanted to carry out a fund-raising campaign with one of his own products. Peter Hofstetter decided to sell his Engeli-Chäs cheese and donate part of the proceeds to the Swiss Paraplegic Foundation. He found the perfect partner for this in the Coop food chain. The campaign was a massive success and raised 3000 Swiss francs. The fund-raising cheque was handed over in the ParaForum Visitor Centre on 11 February 2020.

The same questions can be heard every year during advent: “Mummy, are you making an advent calendar? Are we doing secret Santa? What are we getting?”

Feeling slightly irritated by the annual demands of her two children (aged five and eight), Rebecca Schreiber of Walzenhausen came up with a special idea. She popped to the bank to withdraw 24 five-franc coins, which she used to fill the children's advent calendar. Why was that? “I believe that we give our children too many presents. And they only play with a new toy for about a month anyway.” Rebecca decided that from this year onwards there will no longer be daily presents during advent.

In a short note to her children, Mrs Schreiber announced that from now on the family would be opening a door on the advent calendar every day and placing the five-franc coin hidden behind the door in a money box next to the calendar. The goal was to empty the money box on Christmas Eve and donate the collected money to a charitable organisation. This year, to start this new advent tradition, Rebecca selected the Swiss Paraplegic Foundation (SPF) as the beneficiary.

Once the innovative advent calendar had been explained over dinner, the topic of spinal cord injuries was discussed in great detail and with lively interest. The mother-of-two took the time to explain to the children what the purpose of the SPF is. “That could happen to us, too, couldn't it, Mummy? I think it’s a good idea. We’re doing OK, we have everything. And Santa will be here soon to bring us something, too.”

The lovingly collected sum of CHF 120 from the Schreiber family reached us on 23 December 2019. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!

Mara Brun and her friends are in the third year of secondary school in Hitzkirch (Canton Lucerne). For their project work, the class was given the task of implementing a project of their choice in groups of four. The four young women knew from the start that they wanted their project to be in the social care sector.

Their idea was to make Christmas products, such as biscuits, sugared almonds, cards, etc., themselves and to sell them in the communities of Hitzkirch and Schongau. They wanted to donate any money raised to a regional establishment. As three of the four girls are going to start an apprenticeship in the healthcare sector, they soon realised that they wanted the Swiss Paraplegic Foundation to benefit from their project.

On 3 December 2019, the four friends personally handed over a generous donation of CHF 650.00 to the Swiss Paraplegic Foundation. We would like to thank them for this fantastic idea and the resulting support for people with a spinal cord injury.

The PatriaFit Sarganserland gym took on a great challenge: using ropes to climb the same height as Mount Everest, i.e. a difference in altitude of 8848 metres, in twelve hours. The climb took place on three ropes that were each four metres long, and the athletes had to climb up the rope 2212 times. Spectators at the event also took part in the exhausting endeavour. To the great surprise of everyone involved, the final goal was reached four hours before the time cap. “I am overwhelmed by this achievement”, said co-organiser Claudio Gall. “Some participants mastered a difference in altitude of up to one thousand metres, which is 250 rope climbs.” The fund-raising campaign for the Swiss Paraplegic Foundation raised 1538 Swiss francs.

On Sunday, 11 August 2019, the starting conditions could not have been better when the two sports students, Gian Gmünder and Luca Beugger, started their charity swim at 7 am in glorious sunshine and warm temperatures. For almost twelve hours the two young athletes took it in turns to swim across Lake Sempach until a thunderstorm forced them to stop 6.45 pm, shortly before the end. They covered 28,537 metres and crossed Lake Sempach six times (there and back) between them. They used their charity swim to raise funds for the Swiss Paraplegic Foundation and the Swiss Paraplegic Centre. «Through my family, I have a particular connection to the Swiss Paraplegic Centre in Nottwil», explains Gian Gmünder. His grandfather worked with Guido A. Zäch. «It was clear to us from the beginning that we wanted to use our swim to support people with a spinal cord injury.»
Thanks to this fantastic event and numerous supporters, they were able to donate 5,510 Swiss francs to the Swiss Paraplegic Foundation. We would like to thank Gian and Luca for this fantastic and successful sports event.
 

«Something that is fun and that helps other people», is what Julia Jauch wanted to do for her final project. The young woman from Uri is a passionate runner and foot-baller. For the part of her project that was about helping others, she gathered information about various foundations. «In the end, I decided on the Swiss Paraplegic Foundation. Not least because my project is about running», explains Ms Jauch. She called her sponsored run the «Matterhorn challenge». The aim was to run and compete in races to cover a total of 200 kilometres, which is the exact distance from where she lives to the top of the Matterhorn, within three months. Her dream is to run the Zermatt marathon one day.
Julia Jauch put together a training plan, looked for sponsors and started training in the steep landscape around Bristen. She used her running watch to record the distance covered. «It was really cool the way people in the village motivated me», she remembers. «Occa-sionally other young people joined me on my runs, which gave me an extra boost.» She gained many experiences along the way. «I thought the last kilometre would be the best moment. But it was brilliant when I achieved a personal best in the Lake Sempach race.» She had to run many hours in the rain, try and coordi-nate school and football training, and deal with breathing issues caused by her exercise-induced asthma. «Giving up was never an option», clarifies Ms Jauch. «It was always in the back of my mind who I was doing all this for.» The student ran 200.2 km in a total of 23 hours and 50 minutes, and covered a difference in altitude of 5195 metres. 
She gave the Swiss Paraplegic Foundation a donation of 1566 Swiss francs.  Thank you for your fantastic commitment, Julia!

In 2013, the equestrian sports supplier Stübben GmbH received the commission from Nottwil to produce a saddle suitable for equine therapy with patients with a spinal cord injury. «This special business contact gave us the idea of announcing, at Christmas 2016, two special customised presents for patients of the Swiss Paraplegic Centre in the name of our customers», remembers Frank Stübben, General Manager of the Stans-based company. In late March 2016, together with his Operational Manager Xaver Odermatt, he brought the specially produced therapy saddles worth 7000 Swiss francs to Nottwil. Horse trainers Robert Portmann and Erich Ackermann gratefully received the exceptional donation. Equine therapy (physiotherapy with small horses) was introduced at the Swiss Paraplegic Centre in 1994. There are eight specially trained Icelandic horses available for this purpose in the stable on the Nottwil Campus. The movements patients experience when sitting on a horse have a circulation-boosting and strengthening effect, which can help relax cramped muscles in the legs and back and alleviate pelvic stiffness.

Samantha Wildi raised over 4000 Swiss francs with a “fundraising ride” for the Swiss Paraplegic Foundation. The physiotherapist who works at the SPC invested numerous hours of her own time into the project. More than 200 people came to WIllisau, and 66 riders covered a circuit of up to 54 kilometres on their horses.
Why this high level of commitment?
During her work at the SPC, she saw that many people did not have the financial means to buy themselves things that would make their everyday life considerably easier. «Money from benefactors or direct aid does not cover everything.» Financing a new seat cushion that costs 800 Swiss francs is not a straightforward matter for everyone. «I can see how much help certain people with a spinal cord injury require. I was raising money for these individuals.»