fbpx

Posts

This article is borrowed from the Contra Costa Times and is shared in it’s entirety. To read the original article written by Robert Jordan click here.

SAN RAMON — Don Routh’s lips still tremble and his eyes fight back tears as he recalls the day 34 years ago when doctors told him that his then 1-year-old son, Josh, would never speak or have use of his limbs.

Doctors diagnosed Josh with cerebral palsy, a developmental disability that is caused by brain damage — usually sustained in the womb or at birth — that affects body movement, according to United Celebral Palsy.

“I was terrified,” said Routh, who adopted Josh when he was two days old. “That was my son and to hear that he would be a quadriplegic was tough. … But you can either bury your head in the sand or you can embrace it.”

Don Routh, of the Del Corazon foundation, speaks to students and teachers Feb. 6 at Green Valley Elementary School in Danville. Del Corazon helps raise money for several charitable causes, especially the Wheelchair Foundation and El Oasis Orphanage.

Don Routh, of the Del Corazon foundation, speaks to students and teachers Feb. 6 at Green Valley Elementary School in Danville. Del Corazon helps raise money for several charitable causes, especially the Wheelchair Foundation and El Oasis Orphanage. Photo by Jim Stevens / Bay Area News Group

Routh has done more than embrace it. He has spent his money and time advocating for people with disabilities. The doctors were wrong about Josh. Josh, 35, lives by himself in San Ramon and works as a clerk at Nob Hill Foods.

Together Routh, Josh and Bill Wheeler, the owner of Black Tie Transportation in Pleasanton, have spent the past nine years highlighting world mobility issues and the need for wheelchairs through Del Corazon, the organization the trio started to partner with the Danville-based Wheelchair Foundation. Del Corazon has delivered more than 7,000 wheelchairs to Mexico and Central and South America.

“Josh was born here, but if he was born in a developing country he would not have had the same opportunities,” said Routh, a retired businessman who was a partner at Pricewaterhouse Coopers. “We are helping give others a fighting chance.”

Last year, the trio incorporated schools into their organization with a program that not only raises funds to buy wheelchairs but also provide students a chance to learn about the situation people with disabilities face in the developing world. More than 109 million people with a disability need a wheelchair in the developing world, according to Del Corazon. With help from the Wheelchair Foundation, Del Corazon can deliver wheelchairs for $150 each.

In its first year at eight schools in Pleasanton, Del Corazon raised $18,000. The program expanded to 50 schools this year in Pleasanton, San Ramon, Danville, Oakland and Hayward with a goal to raise $100,000 this year and eventually expand to other parts of the Bay Area.

“This program was different from a lot of other projects we get,” said Parvin Ahmadi, the Pleasanton schools superintendent. “This one has the potential to be a really good service learning project. It is ongoing, and regardless of how old you are, you can be involved.”

Third-graders, from left, Ava Haubner, 8, and Sidney White, 8, sitting in wheelchairs, eat lunch Feb. 7 at Vintage Hills Elementary School in Pleasanton.

Third-graders, from left, Ava Haubner, 8, and Sidney White, 8, sitting in wheelchairs, eat lunch Feb. 7 at Vintage Hills Elementary School in Pleasanton. Photo by Anda Chu / Bay Area News Group

Routh spent the summer with staff from the San Ramon Valley school district’s Ability Awareness Program developing curriculum based on mobility and wheelchairs that accompanies fundraising efforts that students, parents and teachers participate in. Students from kindergarten to high school have a chance to learn about mobility and wheelchairs through subjects from English to physics.

“Students learned a lot about what it means to help others, and that is just a powerful message,” said Kelly Hoffmann, a second-grade teacher at Bollinger Canyon Elementary in San Ramon. “They learned that if you contribute $2 it can make a difference in another person’s life.”

Bollinger Canyon chose to incorporate the Del Corazon program into its lessons plan for a month and set and met a goal of raising $2.50 per student.

In Pleasanton, the Lydiksen Elementary community was one of the pilot schools and collected more than $5,000 in a month, enough to buy 34 wheelchairs for people in Guatemala. Beyond the service learning and fundraising that the school did, teachers from the school also paid their own way to Guatemala to help Routh, Josh and Wheeler deliver the chairs.

“The first chair we delivered was to a woman who had not been out of her bedroom for six years,” said Kimberly Hereld, a fifth-grade teacher at Lydiksen. “We all cried because for $150 we were able to make a difference, and it was our kids that made that happen.” Routh, Josh and Wheeler, with the help of the Wheelchair Foundation, have delivered wheelchairs to 13 countries in Central and South America and hope to visit all 21 countries, with Honduras and Costa Rica scheduled for July.

Lydiksen Elementary is preparing to raise funds in March to help buy wheelchairs for the Honduras trip. In addition, Del Corazon also scheduled two charity basketball games with Monte Vista and San Ramon Valley High School’s basketball programs playing against the Bay Area Outreach and Recreation Program’s wheelchair basketball team on April 29 and May 6.

All the proceeds go toward purchasing and delivering wheelchairs.

“We get to give kids their freedom back,” Josh Routh said.

“We are so blessed and take for granted what we have.” Added Wheeler, “Josh is the X-factor and sets an example for all the kids,” said Wheeler. “He gets around independently, and the kids see what he can do and say, ‘I am like him.’ ”

Fourth-grader Eddie Park, 9, navigates through his classroomin a wheelchair Feb. 7 at Vintage Hills Elementary School in Pleasanton. Students at the school had the use of 10 wheelchairs to experience what it is like to navigate the campus in one. Photo by Anda Chu / Bay Area News Group

Fourth-grader Eddie Park, 9, navigates through his classroomin a wheelchair Feb. 7 at Vintage Hills Elementary School in Pleasanton. Students at the school had the use of 10 wheelchairs to experience what it is like to navigate the campus in one. Photo by Anda Chu / Bay Area News Group

 

For more information on Del Corazon visit del-corazon.org.

DEL CORAZON

For more on Del Corazon, visit del-corazon.org.
For more on the Wheelchair Foundation, visit www/wheelchairfoundation.org.

Pleasanton students learn firsthand about worldwide need for wheelchairs

by Glenn Wohltmann – This story first published in Pleasanton Weekly and PleasantonWeekly.com

pleasanton_weekly

 

Dozens of Pleasanton elementary and middle school kids have a new perspective on what it means to be wheelchair bound.

Schools teamed up with the Wheelchair Foundation to learn and to help raise funds for the organization, thanks to foundation advocate Don Routh, who brought the project to the Pleasanton school district, which embraced the idea.

All materials — wheelchairs, posters, videos and more — were supplied by foundation volunteers. The kids took the idea and ran with it, holding basketball shoot-a-thons, among other things, to raise money for the foundation.

“We did an obstacle course,” said Catherina Lilja, a student in Laura Castro’s seventh-grade class at Harvest Park Middle School. “We let students pick a wheelchair that fit their size.”

“It was really hard to turn around the cones and get through it and it was hard to go up the ramp,” said Janae Indalecio, another of Castro’s students. Castro said some of the teachers had difficulty navigating the course, too.

Students were also able to send a gram, like a telegram, a note to other students at the school for a small fee, Gabriella Smith said. Castro said the school raised about $50 that way.

Eight schools were part of the pilot program, and together they raised more than $10,500, enough for 70 wheelchairs. Harvest Park brought in about $1,700, and Lydiksen raised $5,000.

But the effort was about more than fundraising. Students in Castro’s class were able to tie their learning to their study of Central America, where the wheelchairs are headed.

“It was something geographically relevant for the students,” Castro said.

Others, like those in Mary Singh’s Spanish class — also at Harvest Park — hope to write letters to the wheelchair recipients, who receive stamped envelopes along with their wheelchairs so they can correspond with those who provided them.

“It teaches kids to be philanthropic from an early age,” Routh said.

Students also learned how difficult it can be to get around on wheels instead of walking.

“When we were in a wheelchair, it was harder because we couldn’t use our legs,” said Mia Markovic, one of Castro’s students. She said giving the wheelchairs to those who need them “gives them so much more freedom, so many more things they can do.”

Castro said teachers also discovered that schools aren’t as handicap accessible as they thought, and they learned that they’d have to make some adjustments should they have a wheelchair-bound student. In her class, for example, desks are attached to each other, which would make it difficult for a student in a wheelchair to get through and unable to use one of the desks.

Students also got a first-hand look at some of the prejudices people have against the disabled.

“When I was in a wheelchair, an eighth-grader came up and pushed the chair and tried to push me over,” said Isabella Chin, another of Castro’s students.

It’s hard to say if those students were teasing Chin as part of the project or not, since, Castro said, the entire school wasn’t involved in the effort.

The idea of using schools to raise money started out a few years ago, at Routh’s 40th high school reunion. There, he met up with a classmate who now works at Treeview Elementary, a Title I school in Hayward.

“I’ve been involved as an advocate,” Routh said.

He learned about the foundation through Rotary; his son Josh suffers from cerebral palsy and has been wheelchair bound for most of his life, so the idea of distributing chairs to others was especially poignant for Routh.

“What we decided was, in addition to raising money from our friends and family, we decided to work with the schools,” Routh explained.

He and Josh pitched the idea to the kids at Treeview, stressing that they could make a difference in the lives of those less fortunate than them.

“The kids got all excited and they decided to save their nickels and pennies,” Routh said. “They raised $270 the first year.”

Routh kicked in the rest, so the students paid for two wheelchairs that were sent to Chile along with T-shirts. Pictures of the wheelchair recipients were shown to students the next year, when they raised $300, which bought two wheelchairs that were sent to El Salvador.

“Then, Bill (Wheeler, owner of Black Tie Transportation) and Josh and I were talking and said, ‘If they can raise that kind of money, what can we raise out here in the valley?'”

For Routh and his team, working with schools to raise money has become more than just a good fundraising plan.

“We started to raise the awareness of kids about the need for mobility and also to sensitize them about how to be around people with disabilities, of being more comfortable with people in a wheelchair,” he said. “A wheelchair is just something that helps them. You shouldn’t feel sorry for them, you should feel sorry for someone who doesn’t have a wheelchair.”

Routh said his project is easily integrated into school curricula.

In elementary school, for example, he said students can read stories about people in wheelchairs. Others may learn the history of wheelchairs, which, Routh said, began with a wheeled bed that dates to the sixth century. In high schools, students in physiology class can learn about the calories burned while using a wheelchair.

“We had 10 schools participate in this trial period last year, and the purpose of this wheelchair project was to raise awareness of the need for mobility and at the same time to raise money so that the students here could have an impact on peoples’ lives across the world, in this case, Latin America,” Routh said.

It’s estimated that 100 million people worldwide need a wheelchair. Castro said that need also affects family members who may not be able to attend school or work because they’re needed to care for their disabled relative.

“Bill and Josh and I have personally delivered 6,600 wheelchairs in 12 trips to countries in Latin America,” Routh said. “Our goal is to deliver wheelchairs in all 21 countries.”

Routh, Josh and Wheeler have been focusing their efforts on Central and South America. Shipping containers hold 280 wheelchairs, and this year, those purchased with money raised by Pleasanton schools will go in a container headed to Guatemala.

Next year, Routh is hoping that all the schools in Pleasanton and San Ramon will get involved, along with one in Oakland and Treeview in Hayward.

“I’m going around to all the schools and I expect that all or nearly all will do it,” he said. “So far, I’ve been to 34 or 35 and they’re all in.”

Next year Routh hopes to add more districts, area wide, and eventually, California wide.

“Whenever someone like me raises $42,000, then we can work with the Wheelchair Foundation,” Routh said. “They actually have two or three people who can arrange transportation.”

“We raise the money for the wheelchairs and then we go on the trips themselves to distribute them,” he added.

Some of the teachers who were involved in the fundraising effort will go on this trip. Students 16 and up can go if they provide documentation, and those 13 and older can go with a parent.

“They have to pay their own way, of course,” Routh said. “It’s an opportunity for the teachers, the parents and the students to go.”

He said he’s seen recipients on his trips who were crawling, being transported on donkeys and carried by their parents.

The Wheelchair Foundation was started in 2000 by Ken Behring of Blackhawk. So far, it has delivered 930,000 wheelchairs to people in 150+ countries. Routh said it’s one way to have a direct, immediate impact not only on the wheelchair recipient but on the whole family.

It also has an impact on those giving out the wheelchairs, he said — “It’s a life-changing experience.”

Article in it’s entirety from Tri-Valley Times on 3/7/2013

PLEASANTON — Robbie Brumm has new found empathy for the disabled after spending a day rolling around school in a wheelchair.

“It was a little more work than I expected,” the 14-year-old said. “You have a different perspective in a wheelchair. Everyone else is able to walk around, but you’re not. Toward the end of the day, I wanted to walk because it was so slow getting around.”

Robbie Brumm, 14, gets one of the wheels of his wheelchair stuck while trying to get around campus at Hart Middle School in Pleasanton on Feb. 27, 2013. Students were given the opportunity to try out some wheelchairs on campus as part of a district wide fundraiser for the Rotary Club and the Wheelchair Foundation. (Dan Honda/Tri-Valley Times Staff)

Brumm was among 42 Hart Middle School students who spent at least half a school day using a wheelchair to get a feel for how disabled people live.

“It lets students experience life in a different way,” leadership teacher Stacy Webb said. “They’ll learn that it’s not easy getting around. It’s good to have the experience of feeling different and the difficulty of getting around.”

Hart students took part in the three-day wheelchair exercise as part of the school district’s campaign to raise money for the Danville-based Wheelchair Foundation. The nonprofit group raises funds to provide wheelchairs for disadvantaged people around the world.

“The district goal is to raise $42,000,” Webb said. “That would buy a crate of wheelchairs or 280 wheelchairs. We’re going to send them all to Guatemala.”

When the foundation offered to loan wheelchairs for students to use, Webb jumped at the chance.

“It will raise awareness,” she said. “Any time we don’t understand something, we tend to joke about it or make fun of it. Hopefully, it will help students understand the situation a little more and be more compassionate about what people in wheelchairs go through every day.”

Eighth-grader Lekha Kesavan signed up to ride in a wheelchair all day to experience life on wheels.

Lekha Kesavan, 13, makes her way through a door in a wheelchair at Hart Middle School in Pleasanton on Feb. 27, 2013. Students got to try out some wheelchairs on campus as part of a districtwide fundraiser for the Rotary Club and the Wheelchair Foundation. (Dan Honda/ Tri-Valley Staff)

“I wanted to know what people in wheelchairs have to deal with every day,” the 13-year-old said. “I was surprised at how dependent I was, especially in the tight aisles in the classroom. It was really hard to push myself. I wasn’t expecting it to be that much trouble. I realized how tough it was to roll myself and to turn.”

“After a while, my arms got sore,” eighth-grader Elena Angst added. “By the end of the day, I figured out ways to maneuver better. It was a good experience.”

The students admitted they often relied on the kindness of classmates for a friendly push and help getting around campus.

“Now that I know what they have to go through, I understand more,” Kesavan said. “I learned how much trouble it is for the disabled to move every day.”