TESH clients ready for Aktion
NO ONE WAS GOING to rob Greg Woodall of his five minutes in the spotlight.
He saw the elevated stage at the North Idaho Fairgrounds a year ago and the people sitting on it praising the accomplishments of hundreds of TESH Inc. clients – people like him with a range of developmental disabilities. Greg wanted to feel the audience’s admiration from the stage, but there was no way his wheelchair could make it up the stairs. So he pushed himself out of his chair, crawled up the stairs and collected his award from the stage as everyone watched with astonishment.
“I liked being on stage,” Greg says now, grinning. His legs seem even thinner than they are in the jeans shorts he’s wearing. “I wanted to make my legs stronger.”
Greg solved his problem and saw no reason for a grudge. TESH, which teaches life and job skills to people with disabilities, immediately moved its awards ceremony to ground level, an area accessible to everyone. And minds started working.
“People with disabilities don’t get an opportunity very often to get up on stage,” says Pam Harris, TESH’s vice president. “We decided that would never happen again because we’d raise money to buy a wheelchair lift.”
TESH had just the group to take on such a project – the Aktion Club. Coeur d’Alene Kiwanis Club member Dick Jurvelin proposed the club to TESH last year. Aktion Clubs are a branch of Kiwanis International for people with disabilities. The clubs do projects to benefit the communities they’re in and give people with disabilities an opportunity to work with the rest of the population to keep their towns in good shape. The clubs also help members develop initiative and leadership skills.
Pam proposed an Aktion Club to her clientele and the idea was a hit. Greg was one of several TESH clients awarded last year at the fairgrounds for starting the community service club. His demonstration of the inaccessibility of the North Idaho Fairground’s stage gave the club its first community service project.
“A wheelchair lift is very important,” says Chad Schaff, who wears his red-white-and-blue Aktion Club T-shirt with pride. “It’s safer for someone with a handicap. It helps them go up.”
The 30 people in the Aktion Club began researching wheelchair lifts and all agreed on a portable model that costs $17,000. It was the most expensive of everything they’d studied, but it doesn’t take up space, has Plexiglas walls so riders can see where they’re going and plenty of built-in safety measures.
The fair board was impressed when three club members and Pam presented their idea to them in May.
“The board is excited. It’s a great opportunity,” says Chris Holloway, North Idaho Fair manager. “It might even be something we can share with other facilities. But it’s a big undertaking.”
Pam was disappointed the fair board didn’t offer to help with the cost, but the Aktion Club just asked for approval, not money. The fairgrounds exist on a tight budget and may only see a wheelchair lift as the result of a community service project. But the entire community could benefit by sharing the lift, Chris says, and that’s what Kiwanis projects are all about.
The Aktion Club has raised $803 from a raffle and selling and delivering Krispy Kreme doughnuts. It’s raising money now through ice cream sales at TESH and plans a carwash. Pam is making a thermometer poster to show clients how close they are to their $17,000 goal.
“They’re so excited with the money we’ve made, they don’t realize it’s hardly a drop in the bucket,” she says.
But that’s another good lesson the Aktion Club is teaching her clients. Club members had to learn protocol and how to vote, to wait their turns and how to run for office.
“I like to do the club to help other people. People have to help other people,” says Penny King, whose campaign speech convinced Aktion Club members to elect her vice president.TESH will recognize the Aktion Club and close to 400 clients at its Celebration of Stars at the North Idaho Fairgrounds on July 16. The annual gathering awards volunteerism and accomplishments in sports and the arts. It’s from 12:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. and open to the public. It’s also on ground level, at least for one more year.