By Kathleen M. Muldoon
Yvette Silver ysilver@erols.com
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I first met Diane at an annual picnic that the fire department sponsored for mobility impaired people in my community. She was pretty hard to miss, not only because she’d decorated her wheelchair with zillions of tiny American flags, but also because of the big button on her t-shirt. Red letters spelled out “whining,” and a red bar ran through it: No whining.
My boyfriend Paul laughed. “She looks cool! Let’s find out what the ‘no whining’ is all about.”
We spent a lot of time with Diane that day. She lived in a small town that bordered our city, and she explained how she and some other teens who used wheelchairs had whined a lot about how they couldn’t get into the town’s one movie theater in their wheelchairs. Finally they decided to do something about it. They met with the mayor. They met with the theater owner. They made their needs known-and soon they were able to enjoy movies along with everyone else.
“Each one of us has power,” Diane said. “It just takes one person to stop whining, speak up, and get things done.”
Wow! Paul and I were impressed. On the way home, we talked about all the whining we’d done, too. Even though we lived in the city, there were still places we could not get into, like our natural history museum and a lot of the downtown buildings. Even if we could get into them, many of the sidewalk curbs were too high to navigate in wheelchairs. “I don’t think people want to keep us out,” Paul said. “I just don’t think they realize the problems we have.”
I agreed with him. So we got together with some of our friends who had various disabilities. We decided to have a “Disabilities Awareness Day.” We learned a lot during the summer before the day we’d selected, November 1. We learned that you can’t just have a parade or a demonstration in the park-you have to get permission and permits. We learned that it takes a long time to get in to see a busy mayor and busy city council members. But we did get in to see them, and we even got some city council members to agree to spend November 1 in wheelchairs. One agreed to wear a blindfold to see how it was for blind people to get around downtown. We got permission to set up an “obstacle course” in a downtown park where people could try getting up curbs and through narrow spaces in wheelchairs. Paul was in charge of that.
My job was to get television crews and newspaper reporters to cover our event. Many agreed to come. On Disabilities Awareness Day, many people participated. One city council member offered to help us set up an advisory committee. I couldn’t believe it! Because of our little effort, our city voted to ramp the downtown sidewalk curbs. That same year when the city was building a new sports stadium, we were invited to meet with the architects to tell them what would make it easy for us to get into that stadium and enjoy the ballgames.
That is how I learned the power of one.
I hope you’ve learned that you have power, too. If you’d like to share your story, please do! E-mail it to action@unitedspinal.org or mail it to:
KIDS IN ACTION United Spinal Association 75-20 Astoria Boulevard Jackson Heights, NY 11370-1177
In the meantime, remember, no whining!
Kathleen M. Muldoon is a children’s book author and writing instructor for the Institute of Children’s Literature. She lives in San Antonio, Texas.
