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From the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation comes this very very valuable nugget of information…
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Read Irked posts tagged “wheelchair”
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Remember TiLite Wheelchairs, the awesome Kennewick, Washington-based company we profiled last month (”designed by engineers who use wheelchairs”)?
Well…we were thrilled to come across this November 4th message on TiLite’s official Twitter page:
The sessions—which are free and open to the public—will be moderated by highly-acclaimed journalists Kathryn Gretsinger and Charlie Smith, and the great David Diamond (Headlines Theatre’s trailblazing co-founder and current Artistic Director). They “will get at the nuts and bolts of creating safe, affordable and supportive housing. Each day deals with location, financing and necessary supports and services.”
Moderated panels will be made up of people who have experienced homelessness, Metro Vancouver city councillors and business leaders.
Panelists will each present a short talk on the day’s topic, followed by an open dialogue with the audience.
The ideas discussed at the Sessions will generate an official Community Action Report—designed “to inform policy.” In fact, Headlines Theatre has written agreements from the following organizations to receive the report for their research for national, provincial, regional and local strategies on mental health and homelessness:
If you’d like to participate (and you really really should), The Community Dialogue Sessions are being held in Vancouver at the Firehall Arts Centre:
280 E. Cordova Street
Vancouver, British Columbia
November 24, 25 and 26 @ 1:30pm each day
Admission is free and open to the public
For more information call 1-604-871-0508 or email info@headlinestheatre.com.
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Learn more at headlinestheatre.com
Then…
Read Irked posts tagged “homeless”
Read Irked posts tagged “theatre”
Read Irked posts tagged “mental illness”
Read Irked posts tagged “British Columbia”
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“Three accessible playgrounds are being built as a part of a legacy of the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The province [of British Columbia], Ronald McDonald House Charities and the Rick Hansen Foundation are each contributing to the $1.2 million project. The playgrounds will be built at Kits Beach in Vancouver, the Middle Arm Waterfront Greenway in Richmond and the Celebration Plaza in Whistler. Those in Whistler and Richmond will be built in time for the Games. Vancouver will get its park by next summer.”
Every single city should have at least one accessible playground in its jurisdiction.
Does YOURS????
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Read Irked posts tagged “accessibility”
Read Irked posts tagged “sports”
Read Irked posts tagged “British Columbia”
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Jeff Bell is a renowned author, speaker, and radio news anchor. His first book, “REWIND, REPLAY, REPEAT: A Memoir of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder,” was published in 2007 and quickly established Bell as a leading voice in the mental health community. His story has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Psychology Today, DETAILS Magazine, and The New York Times, for which he was commissioned to write a feature that ran internationally in 2008. He has appeared on NPR’s Talk of the Nation, on The Infinite Mind programs, and on Good Morning America Radio. In addition to being a National Spokesperson for the International OCD Foundation (found at ocfoundation.org), Bell, whose new book “When in Doubt, Make Belief: An OCD-Inspired Approach to Living with Uncertainty” was recently published, currently co-anchors the afternoon news at KCBS Radio in San Francisco.
Jeff was recently interviewed by Peter Hartlaub, Pop Culture Critic for the San Francisco Chronicle. Here are the highlights:
Quoting The Huffington Post:
On September 28, HuffPost featured the story of Monique Zimmerman-Stein, a mother who shares a rare genetic disorder with her children that causes blindness. Though Zimmerman and her family have health insurance, they are still saddled by astronomical debt from medical bills, which has forced this mother to save her daughters’ sight by sacrificing her own. Many readers, touched by the Stein family’s story, have asked for a way to help them. HuffPost Impact got in touch with Gary Stein, Monique Zimmerman-Stein’s husband, a Hillsborough County health department employee, who reported that the family’s medical bills have continued to amass. A few months ago, Stein had a heart attack scare and his daughter had a playground accident that sent her to the emergency room. After tests and scans came out clear, both hospital visits were deemed medically unnecessary and the family was charged additional co-pays, which have since gone into collection. A few weeks ago, Zimmerman-Stein had a minor stroke, known as a TIA, possibly caused by stress. She suffered no lasting side effects… other than the bill for the three-day hospital stay, which so far is $5,000—after insurance—and mounting. Despite this, Stein says “we find, every day, a reason to be brave because our system is difficult. I have a family to support and we make tough decisions every day on how to move forward and how to be normal.” Stein says they know they aren’t the only ones struggling to remain hopeful in the face of mounting health care debt. ”It just wrenches your gut to think that we live in such a great country but people can’t get the medical care they need and that they have to make decisions on what bills to pay, what things to forgo.” The Steins are acutely aware that their story is just one of hundreds of thousands, and Zimmerman-Stein is adamant in her belief that free clinics need to be supported and that our representatives need to be held accountable. “I don’t care who you are, everyone in this world gets sick,” she said. To help the Stein family, [The Huffington Post has] created a widget (see below) where readers can make a direct impact . . . You can give directly to the Stein family via their PayPal account by clicking on the widget below (the PayPal account should read “Just Dolphins”).
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UPDATE: Due to an “overwhelming response,” The HuffPost is extending the length of this fundraiser and have raised their goal to $30,000 (they were originally hoping to cover the latest round of the Stein’s medical bills—but, thanks to your generosity, they are able to help out with their other outstanding bills). Over 860 contributors have given more than $26,000 since last Tuesday afternoon. Quite an amazing accomplishment for the first day of the Impact section! Gary Stein, Monique’s husband, says the family is absolutely overwhelmed by the response from the online community. “We’ll do whatever we can to pay it forward,” he says. “I hope and pray that this amazing response can be repeated.”
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