WATERVILLE — Students at Waterville Primary School took turns pedaling, steering and riding alongside volunteers last week as Maumee Valley Adventurers brought three adaptive cycles to the school blacktop, giving children who use wheelchairs or need extra support a chance to experience a bike ride, many for the first time, the Toledo Free Press reported. The visit was organized with adapted physical education teacher Antonia Dzakula-Meek and the school’s intervention specialists and special education aides.
The effort traces back to volunteer Robert Ewing, 70, whose son learned to ride a bike while overcoming challenges from a mild form of cerebral palsy, the Toledo Free Press reported. “I’ve seen kids in wheelchairs and thought, ‘They don’t get to be kids,'” Ewing told the Toledo Free Press. “I made a promise to the man upstairs that if there was anything I could do for these kids, I would do it.”
Ewing arrived with fellow Maumee Valley Adventurers volunteers Ann Koffman and Jim Wauford and three different adaptive cycles, including a two-seater and a recumbent three-wheeler that lets an adult walk alongside and use a waist-high brake if needed, according to the Toledo Free Press. Wariness disappeared once students saw a classmate take a spin, and soon children were weaving around the blacktop, cheering each other on. “It was fun. I want to go,” student Ella Dobrzeniecki told the Toledo Free Press, ready to ride again.
Intervention specialist Lauren Radwan told the Toledo Free Press the value went beyond one afternoon of fun. “It’s awesome. I feel like some of our kids probably don’t have the motor abilities to be on a bike, so this is giving them access to an experience that their brothers and sisters have had, and now they’re getting to experience it for the first time,” Radwan told the Toledo Free Press.
Dzakula-Meek first worked with Ewing to bring the program to her Anthony Wayne High School students last year, the Toledo Free Press reported. “Whenever I have a chance to give my students a chance to experience something new, exciting and meaningful, I always try to make it happen. They deserve these opportunities, and seeing their excitement makes it all worthwhile,” she told the Toledo Free Press, adding that another event is planned in the spring.
Ewing began offering the adaptive program after discovering accessible cycles stored in a shed by Maumee Valley Adventurers, originally purchased for Cycling Without Age, an international program that gets older people out of nursing homes for rides, according to the Toledo Free Press. He relaunched the effort in partnership with the Metroparks, later applying for grants and donations to buy additional cycles that meet a range of needs, some costing $7,000 or more.
“It’s a program that all kids with disabilities can take part in. I have not turned one kid down yet for a bike ride, whether they’re in a wheelchair or have autism and need someone to sit next to them,” Ewing told the Toledo Free Press. “You have kids that you never would have thought could ride a bike that are riding a bike.” For Waterville Primary families, that is the point: every child got to be a kid on a bike.
Photo: Martti Tulenheimo, CC BY-SA