GoFundMe drive set for park ranger recovering from stroke
RICHMOND >> The son of famed park ranger Betty Reid Soskin has established a GoFundMe drive for medical care as she recovers from a recent stroke.
“For now, we will need to hire in-home care to keep her safe and give her the best possible opportunity for recovery, recognizing that, at 98 years old, recovery is not a given,” Soskin’s son, Bob Reid, wrote on the GoFundMe site Sept. 24. “We want her to have the best possible care during this challenge.”
As of Monday evening, $25,113 had been raised by 407 donors. The goal is $100,000, which her son based on an estimate of an in-home care person for eight hours a day for one year.
In a Facebook post Sept. 22, Reid wrote that Soskin was showing evidence of a stroke while working at the Rosie the Riveter World War II/Home Front National Historical Park. She was taken to a hospital, where “that concern was confirmed.”
“She continues to improve,” Reid wrote Sunday on the GoFundMe site. “She seems to be getting on with being alive! There is much to reconnect with. Thank you all for your support and caring for her!”
Soskin is well known for her talks on Richmond’s history, race and social change at the Rosie the Riveter museum, where she spoke about her experience as a young black woman working at a segregated union hall in Richmond.
Soskin is the nation’s
oldest park ranger and has received several accolades, including a presidential coin from President Barack Obama at the 2015 National Tree Lighting Ceremony. She also was named among Glamour magazine’s 2018 Women of the Year.
She took a two-week break from work in 2016 after she was brutally attacked by an intruder at her home in Richmond.
In addition to stealing Soskin’s iPhone, iPad, laptop and jewelry, the intruder also took her presidential coin, which was later replaced by U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell.
“We do not yet know what the outcome of this will be, not how long, or what direction it may take, but we want to make sure that she has the best chance we can give her for rehabilitation,” Reid wrote on the GoFundMe page. “The next few weeks are critical for her recovery and we hope it is as complete as possible.”