Save Steve’s Family
This is story of one man, fighting alone against a giant insurance
company, to get necessary rehabilitative care for his young wife, Marian.
Please help us, Steve’s friends, save his family. None of us can give him
all he needs, but a lot of us can give a teeny bit. Together, we can help.
St. Petersburg Times Photojournalist Stephen Coddington and his wife Marian are in their 30s, living in Riverview (Tampa Bay area) and are the parents of two children, ages four and seven. The Coddingtons are a young couple, deeply in love and raising a family together. On April 1, 2008 Marian suffered a brain aneurysm. After 6 months in hospitals and care centers, she was transferred to one of the best facilities in the nation, The Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. From there, she had to go to an acute care hospital for several surgeries. Stephen stayed by her side in Chicago, working with her caregivers to help her return to a normal life. The health insurance company dug in its heels, refused to return Marian to the Rehabilitation Institute and stopped all payments to the acute care hospital. Ultimately, Steve brought Marian home, and assumed the role of single parent and sole caregiver, therapist and advocate for his wife. Marian’s mind is active and she understands
fully what is going on around her, but her body has essentially locked her in. She can’t walk or care for herself, and she is working hard at learning to speak again. Steve has used up his family leave time and has neither the helpers nor the money to provide the care she would need for him to return to work. Although the newspaper has continued to extend his leave, he’s been fearful that at some time, the paper would have to cut him loose.
Save Steve’s Family.
—
If you can give, something, anything… it’ll help. There’s a donate
button (Paypal link) on the website.
—
Also there’s a benefit concert for the Coddington’s at Skipper’s
Smokehouse in Tampa, Sunday, August 23 (starts at 4 pm). If you’re in the
area, it’s $10 to get in, and it’s a day of great music for a good cause.
So come…
August 16th, 2009 at 11:19 am
Hello. I am the author of the blog about Steve and his family. I just wanted to thank all of those people who have read this and ask you to please follow the link and read the whole blog. It will only take a few minutes. Then, if you will, make a contribution in any amount and, just as important, pass it on. Our plan to help Steve relies entirely on people being motivated enough to give whatever they are able and then to encourage others to do so as well. We received our first donation Thursday evening at 7:02 PM. As of this writing, we have collected almost $3,000.00. That’s a fantastic beginning, but the family’s needs are great and momentum is everything. We really need you to make this work. Please share Steve’s story, vouch for it and get your friends and family involved. If anyone has questions, feel free to email me at savestevesfamily@gmail.com and you can watch the blog for updates. We have done everything we can to be as transparent as possible so people can trust that this is a true story and these are real people. THANK YOU!
August 16th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
[...] APhotoADay Blog photo news you can use « Save Steve’s Family [...]
[WORDPRESS HASHCASH] The comment’s server IP (75.119.221.189) doesn’t match the comment’s URL host IP () and so is spam.
August 18th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
[...] APhotoADay Blog » Blog Archive » Save Steve's Family [...]
[WORDPRESS HASHCASH] The comment’s server IP (174.132.130.34) doesn’t match the comment’s URL host IP () and so is spam.
August 19th, 2009 at 11:23 am
For anyone following Steve’s story through this web site, I wanted to update you and tell you that your efforts are working. We have raised over $5,000.00 online for Steve and his family in less than a week. We have a very long way to go, but every bit of progress we have made is because people are making their contributions and taking the time to share Steve’s story with others. We have heard from people all over the country and the world who are helping and rooting for this family. You can follow us on the blog because we are posting updates as things develop (and there should be some exciting developments over the next few days, we hope). Here is the link to the blog: http://savestevesfamily.blogspot.com/ Thank you so very much and PLEASE keep telling people about Steve and Marian!
August 21st, 2009 at 11:54 am
[...] APAD and Stellazine) This was written by M. Scott Brauer. Posted on Friday, August 21, 2009, at 4:52 [...]
[WORDPRESS HASHCASH] The comment’s server IP (208.94.117.202) doesn’t match the comment’s URL host IP () and so is spam.
August 22nd, 2009 at 8:08 am
UPDATE: We will be posting a more complete update to the blog this weekend, but I wanted to let you know that we have raised over $8,000.00 so far. We have a long way to go, but we are so thankful for the help we have gotten from the blogosphere! Please keep telling people about Steve and his family and keep following the blog for updates: http://savestevesfamily.blogspot.com. We hope to have some very exciting news early in the week! Email me of you have any questions: savestevesfamily@gmail.com. You can also follow us on twitter now: http://twitter.com/SaveStevesFam. And, above all, THANK YOU. How could we ever express our gratitude for the kindness and generosity of so many people?
September 14th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
UPDATE: Because of each one of you, we have raised nearly $20,000.00 for Marian Coddington’s desperately needed therapy. We are deeply grateful for all of the support you have already given Steve and Marian.
Our greatest hurdle has been reaching as many people as we can to help raise the money Steve needs to get Marian the intensive therapies she requires to recover as completely as possible. Marian CAN recover. She is not a vegetable. She is there, trapped in a body she cannot control. But she is in there.
Today, a short video was released by Brave New Films that features Steve and Marian’s story. We appeal to you, once again, to help us. Please, go to the blog ( http://savestevesfamily.blogspot.com), watch the video and pass it along to anyone you think might be willing to help. We are already so thankful for the hundreds of people who have gotten us this far. We just haven’t gone far enough yet. But we will. And you can count on it.
PLEASE, tell your Facebook friends about Steve, twitter it out to all your tweeps, share it with your coworkers, but keep telling his story.
Thank you.