Highland Lakes volunteers build independence, one wheelchair ramp at a time
DANIEL CLIFTON • PICAYUNE EDITOR
MARBLE FALLS — The work is kind of gritty. The labor makes you sweat. And there’s a good chance you’ll take a mix of dirt and paint home under your fingernails. But when it’s all done, you can step back and realize you didn’t just pound a few nails and paint a few boards, you changed somebody’s life.
“You can give a few hours of your life, and with those few hours, you change somebody’s life forever,” said Ben Redler, the Highland Lakes Ramp Project (or Austin-West) coordinator. “When we build these ramps, it gives the recipient freedom. There are some people who, before we built them a ramp, they couldn’t get outside their home.”
Redler and a cadre of volunteers from Burnet, Blanco and Llano counties build wheelchair ramps for local residents who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford one. The ramps are provided at no cost to the individual or family.
The Highland Lakes chapter, which is under the Texas Ramp Project’s Austin umbrella, built its first ramp in 2010. From 2010 to 2012, the local volunteers built 32 ramps.
“It definitely changes lives,” Redler said.
The Texas Ramp Project began in 2006. Since that time, volunteers across the Lone Star State have built 3,624 ramps. If you stretched those ramps out, it would go on for almost 19 miles.
Before Redler became involved with the Texas Ramp Project, he wondered if there was something locally he and others could do to help the community. While mission projects and goodwill often targets people in other countries, Redler thought there had to be something more local.
“There’s a tremendous need right here in our own community,” he said.
Whether it was divine intervention or just two like-minded people finding each other, Texas Ramp Project Executive Director John Laine somehow ended up with Redler’s name and contact information. So, he reached out to Redler several years ago about the idea of helping expand the project into the Highland Lakes region.
Redler quickly put together a team of volunteers (but they could always use more) and got to work.
People who need ramps can have their health-service provider, whether it’s a physician, home-health nurse or other, refer them through the organization’s website at www.texasramps.org.
Funding for the projects comes through grants and local donations. Redler said First United Methodist Church of Marble Falls, FUMC of Johnson City and Hill Country Fellowship Church in Burnet are sponsors of the program along with numerous individual donors.
“Most of the individuals donations are matched by grants, so you really double your contribution,” he said.
The Texas Ramps Project held Access Across Texas on May 11-18 with volunteers across the state making a concerted effort to build ramps but also highlighting the need for helping disabled residents get access to and from their homes. During the seven-day period, Redler said the Highland Lakes group built two ramps, one for a woman in Marble Falls and another for a man in Spicewood.
“It’s just so wonderful to see the looks on the people’s faces when they can finally get in and out of their homes,” Redler said. “They regain that sense of independence.”
Volunteers are always welcome and don’t need any construction experience or even tools. The program provides training and equipment.
“You just have to be willing to help and want to make a difference in people’s live,” Redler said.
For more information, contact Redler at (830) 613-0755 or redler@281.com.
daniel@thepicayune.com