News
Southern Californians Celebrate the ADA, Guinness World Record-style

To commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation gathered the wheelchair community at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles on July 25 to make a little history of their own. The morning festivities culminated when the crowd of LA wheelers demolished the Guinness world record for most wheelchairs in a moving line.

The previous record of 105, set in 2008 in Woodstock, Vermont, was no match for 193 chairs.

According to Sam Maddox of the Reeve Foundation, the event was a tremendous success. “The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. The idea was to mark the ADA anniversary, but also to share a day of food, fun and prizes, to build community and make new friends. People had a blast. It was a colorful and lively crowd, including a lot of young kids in wheelchairs, from across California,” he said. “We had the support of dozens of community partners, including the Abilities Expo, and from advocacy groups, nonprofits, rehabs and industry.”

Headlining the event were Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, author/speaker Gary Karp, ADA attorney David Geffen, and Jesse Billauer, founder of the Life Rolls On Foundation. A group of wheelchair dancers, Chairlie’s Angels, energized the crowd.

In attendance was videographer and Abilities Expo attendee, Andrew Angulo, who commented, “It was a fun time and an honor to participate in this event.” Click here to see his video chronicle of the occasion.

To break the record, wheelchair riders of all ages—some in manual chairs, some in power chairs, some propelling themselves, some being pushed, some accompanied by assistance dogs—rolled in line for 60 seconds. The excitement was palpable as the gathering of participants and onlookers counted down to Guinness fame.

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Product Spotlight: The Action Trackchair
The Action Trackchair by Action Manufacturing will be featured in at the Houston Abilities Expo on August 27-29, 2010.

The beaten path is actually what Tim Swenson wants everyone to have the freedom to venture off of. His creation, the Action Trackchair, has revolutionized accessibility for wheelchair users who want to experience nature, not watch it from a comfortable distance.

Camping, hiking, fishing and meandering down the seashore are now activities in which people with disabilities can participate independently. And they aren’t kidding about “all-terrain”… sand, snow, mud, overgrown trails and mountain roads are child’s play for this unique ATV.

A 35-year veteran in the motorsports business, Swenson had a very personal stake in developing this off-road wheelchair. His son and wheelchair user, Jeff, is no longer restricted from the outdoor activities that had been his passions before his accident.

Jason Holdahl of Woodland, Washington also relishes what the Action Trackchair has given back to him. “I used to have at least two people carry me and my wheelchair across the soft sand. The Trackchair has allowed me to be independent in the places I love,” he said. “Once again I can join my wife and kids for a stroll down the beach, without being pushed in my wheelchair!” The icing on his cake? He gets to “stomp” in mud puddles with his boys.

Watch this trailblazing chair in action.

The Trackchair comes in varied widths and has a chair that tilts up to 20 degrees in both forward and rear directions. It is battery-powered with a 24-volt system and is navigated with a joystick.

A T-5 paraplegic and a frequent attendee of snowmobile snow cross events, Minnesotan Kirk Woodfill recalls his pre-Trackchair experience as being placed in one viewing spot where he remained for the duration. Now, he is “able to move about the entire race course and roam the complete pit area visiting with friends like never before…My family and friends have always kept me involved in outdoor activities, pushing or pulling my wheelchair through the roughest terrain and to the most remote locations imaginable. Now I can go to those same spots and further on my own.”

For more information, visit www.actiontrackchair.com, email tim@actiontrackchair.com or call (507) 829-5940.

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The Word on the Show Floor
By Sarah Galbraith

Sarah is the Abilities Expo Education and Events Director and also provides consulting services for other disability organizations.

Are you interested in attending Abilities Expo, but just haven't made it yet? Ever wonder what it's like? 

Here’s what three attendees who came to the recent Abilities Expo Chicagoland can tell you about their experiences at the event…

Rob from Chicago has quadriplegia and plays on the RIC Bears Quad Rugby Team. He’s been coming to Abilities Expo for many years and says it’s always a great event. Speaking about the show’s focus on ability and connecting people with the supports they need to live life, Rob says, “It’s good to see people get going. You’ve got to continue to live life [after disability].”

In his opinion the show is the one-stop shop for everything he needs, from technology to wheelchairs to vehicles to home modifications. After his injury he lived in a nursing home. When the time came to relocate to a home of his own, the show was his primary resource. “All my ideas for preparing to move out of the nursing home came from the show.”

In addition to the everyday essentials, Rob also embodies the “living” aspect of life with a disability, through his very active involvement in adaptive sports. As a member of the RIC Bears team, he has an intense training schedule and travels widely. Rob participated in a Quad Rugby Demonstration at the Chicagoland show, helping to introduce other attendees to this exciting, competitive and popular sport.

Dyonne and her young teenaged daughter, Morgan, travelled all the way from Columbus, Ohio, a trip they have been planning for quite some time. They first learned about Abilities Expo three years ago from the web and magazines, and 2010 was the first year they were able to make the journey. A six hour trek each way, they were obliged to stay the night in the Chicago area.

Morgan has a disability from birth which lacks a specific description, but includes partial paralysis which limits her mobility. Dyonne was thrilled to finally make it to the show. She wanted her daughter to see other people with disabilities being active and enjoying life, an attitude missing in their home community. Between all the products exhibited and the events and workshops about activities and sports, the two had a terrific time meeting new people and trying new things.

Morgan is passionate about experiencing new sports and activities. While she’s played baseball in the Miracle League, she is really interested in something that will give her a greater challenge. At Abilities Expo, she played table tennis and billiards for the first time, participated in a dance/movement therapy session and successfully navigated the twists and turns of the Wheelchair Super X obstacle course. She also met many exhibitors with products to help her achieve more in life, including wheelchair and seating specialists, adaptive sports organizations and more.

Morgan is all about “ability.” With an undefined disability, she wants her physicians to be more willing to “brainstorm new ideas, things that perhaps haven’t been tried before.” Sometimes she feels “like they give up a little too easily.” Abilities Expo opened her eyes to many organizations that work with emerging therapies. Not only was it a great opportunity to learn about some of the new medical treatments that exist, it demonstrated that her desire to consider other alternatives were right on track.

Both Dyonne and Morgan returned to Columbus with renewed motivation for discovering supports that will help Morgan fulfill whatever goals she sets for herself.

We hope these stories paint a picture of what a visit to Abilities Expo might be like for you. Each show features a wide range of products and services, plus information, workshops and events.

In addition to Chicagoland, Abilities Expo is held in Los Angeles, New York Metro, Houston and Atlanta each year. Visit www.abilitiesexpo.com for details.

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Give the Gift of Mobility through Wine for Wheelchairs

In a brilliant combination of philanthropy and epicureanism, the Lookout Ridge Winery has joined forces with the Wheelchair Foundation and embarked on an auspicious mission—to inexorably change people’s lives one wheelchair at a time.

From Lookout Ridge, nestled in California’s wine country on top of the Mayacamas between the Napa and Sonoma valleys, Gordon and Kari Holmes looked beyond their own breathtaking vistas. They recognized the view for people with disabilities in developing countries was a grim one and, in fact, there are 150 million children and adults across the globe whose need for a wheelchair far outpaces their ability to secure one. The only way for them to be mobile is to crawl on the ground or be carried by loved ones. The harsh reality is that many spend their days in bed or in a corner of a room as the years tick by.

In 2004, the Holmes’ launched Wine for Wheelchairs in an effort to combat these daunting statistics. Today they have assembled eight renowned winemakers, each producing an exclusive batch of their best varietal which is branded under the Lookout Ridge label. The program is simple yet powerful—for every bottle of wine sold, one wheelchair makes its way to someone who desperately needs it.

Kari Holmes, the true inspiration behind this unique initiative, knows all too well what the gift of mobility can mean to a person. Years ago, when she was first diagnosed with MS, she admits that she resisted the use of a wheelchair and allowed her world to become smaller and smaller. When a family outing to a large fair made mobility equipment a necessity, Kari’s outlook did an abrupt about face. “Having mobility…was unbelievable,” she recalls. “Gordon saw how happy that made me to go places and do things with my kids.”

It was this feeling of elation and independence that the Holmes’ were determined to share. They enlisted the aid of the Wheelchair Foundation who took charge of producing the chairs and finding needy recipients in countries like Mexico, Bolivia, Belize, China and more. Since its inception, Wine for Wheelchairs is responsible for donating more than 2,500 wheelchairs.

The Wheelchair Foundation works in concert with the governments of developing countries to identify communities where multiple people need wheelchairs. With the purchase of a single bottle, priced at only $100, a wheelchair is donated in the name of the customer, who receives a certificate and a picture of the individual whose life they changed. Gordon Holmes has personally traveled to these remote locations and, joined by local dignitaries, has experienced the program’s profound effect first-hand.

“The first time we distributed wheelchairs, I saw how one could instantly change someone’s life,” said Gordon. “I picked up a little boy whose dad was wheeling him in a wheelbarrow and sat him in a wheelchair. The look on his face now that he could get around…WOW!”

Kari, who was able to accompany her husband for a distribution in Mexico, was also struck by the faces of each beneficiary. “The just absolutely glow,” she said. “That one wheelchair for one person affects the whole family…It was important for me to finally get a wheelchair, and it’s even more important to have this in third world countries.”

As the word spreads, so has the popularity of Wine for Wheelchairs. Multiple corporations, recognizing the potential to make such a sweeping impact, have also jumped on board. Nevertheless, Lookout Ridge continues to rely on individuals to support the cause.

Whether you are a wine connoisseur, humanitarian or both, don’t miss this chance to make a difference in the life of someone halfway around the world. Log on and choose from Lookout Ridge’s exciting, vibrant and unforgettable cabernet sauvignons and a pinot noir. You’ll savor the wine even more knowing you’ve made mobility possible for a person in need.

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Defusing Disability Stereotypes
By Michelle Colvard

Michelle is an Abilities Expo Ambassador as well as a disabilities rights advocate, the 2009 Ms. Wheelchair America, the former executive director of the Houston Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities and the former commissioner of the Houston Commission on Disabilities.

Stigmas and stereotypes of people with disabilities can be powerful, but don’t need to hold us back. I’m reminded of Professor Hope John Franklin, who passed away last year. He had served on government and academic boards and committees, was the first black chairman of a department at a predominantly white university and paved the way for black academics across the nation.

However, he had to work against the racism of the times in order to prove his talents. Even in recent years, stereotypes proved truly persistent when, at the age of 80, he had hosted a dinner party at the exclusive Cosmos Club in Washington, D.C. and was mistaken for the coat-check clerk.

During a recent NPR interview, he also recalled an incident in his youth, when as a child, he and his mother and sister were kicked off of a train after his mother refused to move to the overcrowded “Negro” coach.

The radio interviewer asked, “And did that bother you?” He replied casually, “Sure… but I knew something that they didn’t know.”

The interviewer responded, “What’s that?”

I can imagine the interviewer leaning forward towards Franklin as he answered in a whisper, twinkle in his eye: “That I’m as good as they are.”

His words still resonate with me as I think of my own experiences. As a young child growing up with braces and crutches, my mother had to fight for me to attend a regular school instead of a special education school. My mother knew there was nothing wrong with her child’s mind. She taught me to be a proficient reader by age three so that others would know it, too. And so I knew that I was as good as “they” are. 

We all have had first-hand experience with the compelling influence of stereotypes and first impressions. A doctor who uses a wheelchair may be mistaken for a patient in the hallways of the hospital where she works. A person who has a severe heart condition but no readily apparent disability is given dirty looks by a passersby when he steps out of a car that is parked in an accessible parking space. A math whiz who graduated top of his class with an accounting degree may encounter an employer who isn’t familiar with all of the technology available so he can do accounting work—which a state agency will even purchase so that he can do his job.

Maybe others will misjudge you, but you know who you are, and what you're capable of. It’s up to us… so show them.

 News
Jesse Billauer Teams Up With Astra Tech as its New ‘Patient Ambassador’

Astra Tech’s LoFric is no ordinary urinary intermittent catheter, but, then again, Jesse Billauer, the new patient ambassador for this revolutionary product, is no ordinary guy.

As a youth, Jesse Billauer was a star athlete and began surfing at the age of nine. By age eleven, Jesse was surfing competitively. He was featured in magazines, such as Surfer, Surfing, Transworld, Wave Action and others. With surfboard, apparel and sunglass sponsors, Jesse went international. By the mid-90’s, Surfer magazine had named him one of the Top 100 up-and-coming surfers of the world. Negotiations were underway to put Jesse on the pro surfing tour, a lifelong dream, now on the verge of being realized. The fateful morning of March 25, 1996, put an end to that dream.

While surfing, Jesse was hit by the crest of a wave and flew headfirst into a shallow sandbar, causing him to suffer a complete spinal cord injury. Jesse was now a quadriplegic.

A few years after his life-changing accident, Jesse founded Life Rolls On, a non-profit organization and division of the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, serving as its West Coast headquarters. Founded in 1999, Life Rolls On improves the quality of life for young people affected by spinal cord injury and utilizes action sports as a platform for inspiring infinite possibilities despite paralysis. Through quality of life programs, spinal cord injury awareness initiatives and outreach to individuals at the onset of injury, Life Rolls On impacts the lives of more than 100,000 people each year. In 2007, Life Rolls On received an Emmy® nomination for Best National Public Service Announcement and its outstanding work has been featured on international television, radio and in print.

Billauer has been featured on television shows such as Good Morning America, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, DatelineNBC, Entertainment Television’s True American Story, TLC’s While You Were Out and in the feature film, Step into Liquid. A recently-released documentary movie about his life, Jesse’s Story, inspires a worldwide audience to enjoy today knowing tomorrow is not guaranteed.

Jesse struggled with severe trauma and hospitalization while using conventional catheters, and he attributes his recent success with catheterization to the comfort and long-term safety that LoFric provides. In fact, Jesse credits LoFric with having “changed his life,” and he believes all patients should benefit from LoFric, the world’s most comfortable catheter.

He was introduced as the LoFric Patient Ambassador at the 2010 Los Angeles Abilities Expo, and will be attending the Houston Abilities Expo this summer. Stop by the Astra Tech Booth #222 on Friday, August 27 from 1:00 – 3:00 pm to meet Jesse in person.