In 1999, Laquita Conway was in the midst of purchasing a farm out of state when she received the news she’ll never forget: Her son Aaron had been in a severe motocross accident and was potentially paralyzed for life.
Laquita jumped on the next plane to California to rush to her son’s side. When she arrived, the doctors gave her a grim prognosis for Aaron’s future. Aaron was a C-6 quadriplegic, and the chances of him ever functioning again were “one in a million.”
“I personally slid down the hallway after yelling at the doctors and felt that there was no way that I could get up again,” Laquita said. “Then I realized that I wasn’t the one who was in need. It was Aaron.”
While Aaron began inpatient rehabilitation, Laquita scoured for more physical therapy options for her son. What she found shocked her; resources for those with new SCI injuries were few and far between.
Aaron chose a rehabilitation program at a kinesiology lab at Cal State Northridge run by personal trainer and former professor Taylor Issacs. There he had massive improvements, regaining the ability to walk and eventually even biking the L.A. marathon.
Meanwhile, Laquita pursued the idea of “creating a non-profit rehabilitation center that would serve special populations.”
“It’s still inconceivable to me that people have no place to go once their hospital stay has been exhausted,” said Laquita.
Aaron and Laquita came up with idea of C.O.R.E. (center of rehabilitation exercise), and in 2007 the duo decided to take off on a cross-country tandem bicycle tour to promote their venture.
Departing from San Diego and eventually arriving in Florida, the tour attracted attention and brought in funds to the CORE concept. Further fundraisers and promotions have increased CORE’S presence, and this June Aaron and Laquita took off from San Francisco on another cross-country venture that they plan to complete in Washington D.C. in September
“This year's tour is really set to solidify and get the media attention and all of the networking with the various foundation alliances,” said Laquita, who added that the goal of the tour is to raise a $1,000,000 with which to open the first CORE branch by the end of the year.
Laquita, who formerly worked as an importer and in sales, has always been an innovator and an entrepreneur, and has utilized her business skills to help the CORE model grow.
“I have a double-sided ambition. One is that it [CORE] is such a great need for so many people. I mean, we’re really talking about millions of people because we aim to go way beyond SCI, so with that my entrepreneurial spirit gets to go wild,” she said.
Laquita said that CORE is building their brand with a strategy called “reverse development,” in which an organization becomes a known entity before it actually exists in the physical sense.
“Our idea of this concept of reverse development is actually quite brilliant for this type of venture, in that we are breaking boundaries and creating something that doesn’t exist, and we’re creating it so that when those doors open they will open with success,” she said.
Laquita stresses that CORE will be affordable to all, and hopes to utilize community volunteering resources to help cut down on costs.
And while she plans on handing over the day-to-day operations of the facility to other professionals, she will continue to work actively on the project: marketing, networking, and ensuring that CORE can offer all of its clients the services they need.
Although the ride for her and Aaron has been a long and arduous one, Laquita credits their emotional and physical success to their involvement in service as a compliment to Aaron’s rehabilitation.
“Going into the larger picture of service is when you feel like you’re the most alive,” she said.
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