One heart attack. Two strokes. Five stents. Advanced diabetes. Limited mobility. Ricky’s life isn’t easy. Home is a trailer with a deck and a ramp. The ramp has no rails, so he and his mobility scooter fell off of it a few times.
The need was great, and we had four days during Impact the Valley to make his home safer. Four middle-school boys and a site leader got to work Monday morning. Before they could do anything else, they had to clean up around his place. They carried bags of trash, and moved all kinds of debris out of the way so they could work. It certainly wasn’t glamorous work, but there were no complaints.
The crew was rained out on Tuesday but found another gear the rest of the week. They built the railing for the ramp and a frame around the deck so they could convert it into an enclosed porch. Ricky’s mobility scooter can’t fit through the door to his trailer, so it spends too much time out in the weather.
For the rest of the week, any of the boys who weren’t working on the porch and ramp spent more time cleaning the area. I’m not going to say it was spotless, but it looked a whole lot better than it did on Monday.
By the end of the day Thursday, the job was done. Ricky was safer and could park his scooter out of the weather in a place he could easily get to. He could also move around his property better with all the debris out of the way.
I stopped by Thursday afternoon to see Ricky and look at the job. He shared details about his health struggles and a lack of support from his family. Then he grew quiet for a few minutes, just watching the boys at work. Two were putting tin on the roof of the porch and two were cleaning up an area so he could more easily get to his ramp.
“I can’t believe ya’ll are doing this for me, Nobody’s ever done anything like this for me. I’ll never forget it. These boys have worked so hard.”
I’ve heard adults complain about every generation of youth I’ve worked with. And with every generation, I’ve seen caring young people demolish the stereotypes used to describe them. This generation is no different. After what I saw at Impact the Valley this year, I can say this with absolute confidence; Don’t worry.