Support for Rykowski Family's Unexpected Crisis

My name is Bailey Roszko and I am fundraising for an amazing family in Goodyear, Arizona. The Rykowski Family. They recently traveled to New York and while there the husband and father suffered a medical emergency due to a blood clot in his leg.

A few years back this wonderful family adopted two boys while living there in New York then they moved here to Goodyear, Arizona. Lisa Marie works for GCE and her husband Ted works remotely from home in Arizona for a company out of New York as a light design engineer. The family has recently suffered a medical emergency while traveling for vacation to New York and have been dealing with struggles everyday since. They have family and friends there that they were visiting. They are also in the process of trying to adopt the three younger siblings of the boys they adopted several years ago.

While dealing with all of this they have been fighting with JetBlue to get a refund on their return flights as they don’t know when or even if they will be able to fly back to Arizona. At this time, the doctors are unsure if the husband will need surgery to repair the major blood clot before he can travel. If he can travel the pressure in an airplane could potentially cause problems as well as sitting for long periods of time. So, they may need to seek alternative transportation options such as train or driving so he can get up and walk. They have also had the added cost of finding extended lodging, covering the cost of transportation, food, parking, and other expenses that weren’t planned for as the duration of the trip has been seriously extended. At the moment they don’t have a definitive return date as the doctor’s decision on what to do for the clot hasn’t been made.

This family does amazing things for the local community. They attend one of the local churches, Saint Thomas Aquinas in Avondale and are an all-around amazing family. The parents volunteer as school chaperones, PTO, veterans pancake breakfast service, youth ministers and so much more. Their boys are both in local sports, Boy Scouts and are a part of their local church Sunday Mass services as altar boys. They do so much to support the local community and many of us are working to band together to help them out in their time of need.

One of our biggest challenges currently is that JetBlue is refusing to give them a refund on their return airfare and the added expenses of lodging, food, and transportation. The company states that it is policy regardless of emergency medical circumstances is to give them a future flight voucher minus the $100 per seat cancellation fee x4 seats. This amounts to almost nothing after all is said and done. This family has been through so much in the past few days and has had all these added expenses for JetBlue to be doing essentially nothing to help this family but rather adding insult to injury with a voucher that they very potentially won’t be able to use should the doctors decide that the father can’t fly is heartless.

On top of all that one of the son’s ear drum ruptured while dealing with all of this and insurance isn’t covering the cost of the medication. The local community, their church and the boys’ schools are all working with several friends of the family and community members to help the family in any ways that we can by putting together a fundraiser here on GoFundMe as well as working to organize a local food truck night in the coming weeks.

All funds go to the family to support them in Medical Care, cover food, lodging until their return home, transportation to and from the hospital, pharmacy and other places for their care and medical treatment such as medicine. The last of the funds will help them get home to Arizona from New York.