It takes John Laine and his fellow volunteers two hours to change a person’s life. That’s how long it takes to build a wheelchair ramp for a homebound person who can’t afford one. For recipients, construction is free of charge and provides the freedom to come and go as they please.
“Can you imagine being a prisoner in your own house?” asks Laine, founder and executive director of the Dallas-based Texas Ramp Project, which over the past four years has provided more than 1,000 Texans with safe, independent exit and entry to their homes via wheelchair ramps. “Thousands of Texas residents are imprisoned in their own homes by something as simple as one or two steps,” Laine said.
Beginning with local ramp projects in Austin and North Central Texas in 2006, the Texas Ramp Project has since grown to 16 projects around the state, from El Paso to Texarkana, from Houston to Amarillo.
Though he relies heavily on referrals by social workers for the next project, Laine also goes out looking for others who can identify the need for a ramp, including doctors and physical therapists in hospitals and dialysis clinics. Materials, including lumber, plywood and hardware, are sometimes donated but are usually purchased with funds from charitable foundations, local businesses, churches and individuals. The total cost of building a ramp amounts to about $600 in materials only. A bid from a construction company would probably be four or five times as much.
Everyone involved is a tool-toting volunteer, rustled up from Twitter, churches, colleges, or the Lions Club to work on Saturdays. The Texas Ramp Project has provided over 42,000 hours of volunteer labor, helping a wide range of residents: a 12-year-old foster child who was so excited to have a safe way to his backyard that he spent the first few minutes doing wheelies on the ramp in his electronic wheelchair. A wheelchair-bound man who had missed family gatherings because he had no way of leaving the house. A husband on limited income who couldn’t bring his 86-year-old wife home from rehabilitation until he could prove that she had independent access to the house.
The Texas Ramp Project has only been able to build ramps for about a third of the prospective recipients for whom it has received referrals in the past year and a half, though.
“We have come a long way in four years thanks to the dedication and hard work of our volunteers and the generosity of our supporters,” said Laine. “But there are still far too many of our fellow Texans waiting for someone to help them regain their independence.”
Here’s how you can help:
Live in Texas? Volunteer to build a ramp. Individuals and groups are welcome, especially those with trucks or trailers.
Don’t live in Texas? Make a donation. The average 24-foot ramp costs $600, or $25 a foot, in materials. The group also is looking for a materials including tools, lumber and electrical power units.
Contact the Texas Ramp Project at www.texasramps.org.
Photo 1 courtesy of The Marshall News Messenger; photo 2 courtesy of The Texas Ramp Project.