- April 18, 2024
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Rebecca Schneider started using drugs when she was 14.
Her mother, Lisa Schmidt could see her daughter's behavior had changed when she started attending middle school. Schmidt decided to start homeschooling her daughter but her daughter continued to find ways to get drugs. Then Schmidt put her daughter in a residential adolescent program through Stewart-Marchman-Act Behavioral Healthcare.
Schneider did not stay in the program.
It wasn't until Schmidt's daughter went out with some friends one night that it was clear something else had to be done. Schneider had gone out late one night without her mother knowing. One of the individuals she was with became involved in an altercation and shot off a gun.
When Schneider returned to her home, several police officers were waiting for her and her friend. This led to her arrest and a court order to go back to the RAP program.
After a few months she left the program again. But this time a court order had been violated.
"She got in with the wrong crowd and I just couldn't keep her away from it," Schmidt said. "The kids were getting into the medicine cabinets and the oxycontin was coming around, it was that era when everyone was experimenting and everyone was getting addicted."
By this time, Schneider was also doing synthetic heroin.
Once again, Schmidt put her daughter back into a detox program asking a friend who worked there to do her best to keep her daughter in the program. This time she stayed. But when her parents came to pick her up, she had other plans instead of returning home.
On a rainy day on August 27, 2012, Schneider left the building where she had been participating in detox. Outside, a parked truck was waiting for her. In the passenger's side, crouched on the floorboards, was the person who had driven the truck. Schneider jumped into the driver's side and pulled out of the parking lot and sped onto Route 92, her parents following behind.
Schneider then pulled onto I-95 when the truck started fishtailing then rolled. Schneider was killed instantly. She was only 19.
The person who had been in the truck with her walked away with only scratches.
"When Rebecca died I couldn't get out of bed for months," Schmidt said. "I was just so distraught and so suicidal; I was under doctors care from her dying."
Months went by and Schmidt, despite the devastation, toyed with an idea that kept creeping into her mind — to help other people who were struggling to overcome drug addictions.
Eventually, leaders at Stewart-Marchman asked Schmidt to visit one of their programs and talk to the people there about her experience. When Schmidt told her story, she made up her mind to start her own program to help people overcoming addictions.
"I wanted to do something in remembrance of Rebecca but I didn't know what," Schmidt said, adding that when she began speaking to people in the detox program her mission became clear.
"There were so many young girls out there and I would see my daughter's face within that," Schmidt said.
Schmidt began working with people in the detox programs and soon realized she not only wanted to assist people on their journey to recovery, she wanted to provide a place where they could recover.
"I thought, maybe if I could help just one person maybe it'll save their parents from the pain I went through" Lisa Schmidt
It wasn't until her sister told her about a building on Ridgewood Avenue that a church was renting that Schmidt's mission started coming to life. She noted that while she didn't know what she was doing she did know that she had to have the home.
Using her own finances, Schmidt began by renting out the home, opening it up to people who were serious about leaving behind their drug addictions. In 2013, the Rebecca Schneider Foundation was formed.
In August of 2017, Schmidt's mother and a friend purchased the home for her. However, Schmidt still pays rent and had the house furnished for the residents. Because she is currently working full-time and trying to earn her doctorate for criminal justice she has little time for fundraisers and heavily relies on her own finances and the fee paid by the residents to keep the home open.
There are currently three residents at the home. Schmidt and her House Manager Anthony Annatone, who has been free of drug use for seven years, work to make sure the people who lived there are doing their best to recover.
Residents have to sign in and out; there is a curfew; random drug tests are done; and everyone is asked to attend regular meetings to assist in their recovery. Individuals must also have a job.
Schmidt is set on helping people recover and has also had to ask residents to leave if they are not working on their recovery and continue to do drugs.
The Rebecca Schneider Foundation may not have been something Schmidt had planned for, but it has become a place to help others in her daughter's memory.
"This wasn't my calling," Schmidt said. "I thought, maybe if I could help just one person maybe it'll save their parents from the pain I went through."
