A playground for Stella

"Playgrounds aren't for me."

Those words devastated Rese Schneider when her daughter, Stella, uttered them after visiting a local park together. The seven-year-old was just beginning a long, slow neurological recovery following months of unexplained illness and a delicate, grueling surgery that set Stella's childhood development back to infancy.

Stella's disappointment sparked what will soon be Milwaukee's first universally accessible and inclusive playground.

Stella's cancer journey goes back to March 2023, when Rese and her husband Robert Schneider noticed their daughter doing something peculiar every morning: Stella would get up, run straight to the bathroom and vomit. Oddly, she seemed healthy the rest of the day.

"The doctor said sometimes this happens," Rese says. "It's what they call gastroparesis. Basically, your system gets used to throwing up, and we thought, well, that's strange, but maybe it'll go away. Two months later, it still hadn't gone away. Stella was still throwing up every morning, and she was starting to lose weight."

Doctors recommended that the Schneiders go to Children's Wisconsin for further testing. Maybe Stella had acid reflux or an allergy.

"I was beside myself," Rese says. "The doctor performed an endoscopy, came back and said, 'Well, the good news is we've ruled out all the scary stuff.' And Robert and I were thinking, okay, no scary stuff. The doctor told us to come back in August."

By the Fourth of July, Stella had lost 16% of her body weight and still got sick every morning.

"We took her into the pediatrician to get checked out on a Thursday afternoon," Rese says. "The doctor said, 'Okay, Stella, follow my finger.' And Stella's eyes started to bounce. I remember watching her pediatrician. You could see the color leave her face."

Doctors immediately got Stella in for a CT scan. They found a four-centimeter tumor connected to her brain stem; she also had hydrocephalus, a buildup of cerebral spinal fluid.

"She needed to have emergency surgery that same night to relieve the pressure in her head from the hydrocephalus," Rese says. "They did an MRI that Saturday to get a full extent of the tumor. Everything happened so quickly."

Despite the risk of complications, the Schneiders remained optimistic that the marathon medical procedure would be successful.

But when Stella came out of surgery, her face didn't move like before; her speech was problematic.

"After her surgery she couldn't talk," Robert recalls. "The only part of her body that she could move was her left hand, and that was just a little bit."

A biopsy following the surgery confirmed that Stella's tumor was a medulloblastoma - a fast-growing, cancerous tumor that typically develops in the cerebellum of children. Stella would need radiation and chemotherapy.

Stella would also have to re-learn basic functions - she couldn't walk, talk or eat on her own. She couldn't even close her eyes fully.

Marquette's healing hand

To improve Stella's speech, Rese and Robert brought Stella to Marquette's Speech and Hearing Clinic where she met Bridget Valla, Grad '92, clinical associate professor of speech pathology in the College of Health Sciences. Valla would be one of many Marquette faculty, staff and alumni who would wrap Stella and her family in Marquette's spirit of cura personalis.

"When I met Stella, she was one year postoperative of having her brain surgery," Valla says. "She was wearing purple, her favorite color, and was eager to participate and show us everything she could do in terms of movements of her tongue, jaw, lips, cheek, throat, face, speech sounds and language."

Valla says Stella is unlike any other patient she's ever had. Students who have worked with her still find ways to stay connected - they even come back to see Stella in session to celebrate her successes.

"There's a picture of several past clinicians with Stella in her treatment room this semester, all smiling with Stella and so proud of her, and I was proud of all of them," Valla says. "I love Stella's honesty, sarcasm, feistiness, sensitivity, perseverance and empathy and support that she's shared with me and the rest of the speech students at Marquette."

Marquette's support didn't stop there.

When Jackie Podewils, former director of the Marquette Speech and Hearing Clinic, heard about Stella, prayers went up immediately.

"I am very prayerful and believe in the power of prayer," Podewils says. "I added Stella and her family to my daily prayers and wrote Stella's name on my St. Peregrine prayer card, as he is the Patron Saint of Cancer Patients, so that I was saying her name daily as I asked for his intercessions."

Lori Richards, Comm '02, CEO of Mueller Communications and Rese's close friend, knew she had to help any way she could.

"In the blink of an eye, cancer changed everything for this little girl and her family, whom I love deeply," Richards says. "In the faith tradition of Marquette, we're compelled to care for those in need and carry one another's burdens. I can't think of a finer example of the Jesuit principle of cura personalis, than Stella's Playground. I wanted to do whatever I could, personally and professionally, to help this family adjust to the new reality of their lives through this cancer journey and help them find little moments of hope and joy in it."

Playgrounds are for Stella

The idea for Stella's Playground immediately stirred up support from Marquette alumni across the community.

Richards rallied her work team, many of whom are Marquette alumni, and nearly a dozen co-workers united to donate their time to the playground.

"It was a call to action we could answer to support the Schneider family in a very tangible way," Richards says. "Our team at Mueller has been assisting with communications and PR efforts, with the additional support of outside volunteers who help coordinate other elements like the website and social media."

RaSmith, a Brookfield-based civil engineering firm founded by Marquette alumnus Rick Smith, Eng '73, Grad '82, has been an exceptional partner and donated preliminary design work for the playground.

"At raSmith, we believe great communities are built when everyone has a place to belong. That's exactly what Stella's Playground represents," says Andrew Stasiukevicius, PE, Eng '15, project manager at raSmith. "As a Marquette alum myself, it is especially gratifying to see how many of us are rallying behind this vision. This is what it means to be of service to the community we call home."

The City of Milwaukee is helping the family with the project, too. Joe Kaltenberg, Eng '15, Milwaukee Parks manager and Marquette alumnus, helped secure funding and guide the playground design.

"We hope to break ground this fall at Kilbourn Reservoir Park in the Riverwest neighborhood, but construction will take us through next spring," Rese says. "The project will likely be done in two phases, so potentially the bathrooms, basketball court and some other features will be open this fall. The dragon and main part of the playground will be open in spring 2027. But we have to finish raising money to see this to its completion!"

With inclusive basketball courts, a quiet/sensory zone, tree tunnel, musical features and creative play spaces, Stella's playground is meant to provide a space where everyone belongs, and everyone is welcome.

Stella's spirit will also shine through with a featured dragon and lots of purple.

Playgrounds, it turns out, are very much for Stella.

View the renderings of the full playground HERE.

$1.2 million of the $2 million fundraising goal has been met. Donations will go directly and fully to Stella's Playground and are 100% tax deductible. For more information or to donate, CLICK HERE.