Mom of NBA Star Shops for Local Rehabilitation Center, Family’s Donation Helps Oklahomans

Patients recovering from stroke and other traumatic injuries will get a brand new kitchen stocked with supplies thanks to a donation from the Trae Young Family Foundation.

The charity of NBA star and Norman native Trae Young made a $250,000 commitment to the Norman Regional Health Foundation to support Norman Regional’s Rehabilitation Center. This gift enabled the center to have both a state-of-the-art kitchen and a Gait and Balance system, which is the only of its kind in Oklahoma for adult patients.

Related Blog: Innovative ZeroG Technology Helps Oklahoma Patients Walk Again Thanks to Local Donors Gait and Balance

Trae Young’s mother Candice Young teamed up with occupational therapists to shop for the kitchen at the local store The International Pantry. She filled baskets with oven mitts, measuring cups, cutting boards and everything patients will need to re-learn vital kitchen skills. Therapists noted that cooking often engages patients, and gives them a level of comfort by practicing a familiar activity.

Candice Young said this gift was important for her and her family; especially since she witnessed her grandfather recover from a stroke.

"It's important to me and the Trae Young Family Foundation because Norman Regional is a partner in our community and they're a pillar. Then, knowing that there are people that are going to utilize this technology just for every day, in the kitchen, doing what they've done before,” Candice Young said.

“My grandpa had a stroke when I was in high school and watching him relearn how to do something as simple as go downstairs or walk down his hallway, things like that, he would have been able to use this technology to do things even easier and safer. So that's why we did this partnership.”

This kitchen is vital to helping patients relearn the skills they need to live independently. Therapists teach and guide patients on how to safely prepare food, work common appliances and return home. The kitchen is a unique part of a patient’s rehabilitation, said Ben Vandaveer, program manager of the Rehabilitation Center.

“We can easily take for granted a task like baking a cake, but after a stroke, this task becomes much more complex,” Vandaveer said. “Our therapists use our kitchen to take patients all the way through a task like this, from creating a shopping list, determining costs, gathering ingredients, measuring and timing the different steps needed, and adapting any of these steps as needed based on the individual patient and their impairments.”

The International Pantry has been a Norman staple since its opening in 1978. Over the decades, The International Pantry has provided home cooks, professional chefs, and now patients, access to quality cooking appliances, cutlery and more!

"Also partnering with businesses and organizations that are local, we're local and being with Norman Regional, The Trae Young Family Foundation is just grateful for the city partners that we get to have," Candice Young said.

The Norman Regional Health Foundation, a non-profit that supports Norman Regional Health System, helps link donors like the Young family with projects that make a difference in the community. The Foundation recently completed a $4 million Equipped for Tomorrow campaign that raised money to fund equipment in the health system’s new, expanded hospital off Tecumseh Road.