For most of us, a trip to Mexico is a chance to lie in the sun and do nothing for several days or weeks. And that's really all local woman Maureen McBeath had in mind in 2005 when her parents invited her to their timeshare in Mazatlan. Heartsick from the loss of her husband to cancer the year before, McBeath was feeling at odds with the world.
All of that changed when she went to play tennis at the facility and discovered a big sign on the courts saying, 'Closed for Mobility Project use.'
McBeath's interest was piqued. When she found out the group was involved in bringing wheelchairs, walkers, crutches and canes to folks who needed them, and that there was follow up work in teaching the newly-mobile how to participate in various sports such as tennis, she was hooked.
McBeath is a retired special education teacher (on-call when she's home). She taught special needs students for 20 years, 17 at Roberts Creek Elementary School. Prior to teaching she ran the Centennial Community Centre in New Westminster where the recreation enthusiast ran the children's summer programs. So imagine her delight in discovering both those skills were useful to the Mobility Project.
"I offered to assist even though I had little experience with wheelchairs and spoke but a few words of Spanish. I found neither of these shortcomings made any difference," McBeath explained. "I found myself drawn to Erika, a young woman with cerebral palsy. Over the course of the camp, I worked with Erika and watched her face light up when she connected with tennis balls and sent them flying."
McBeath came home with a new ambition in life - to tell everyone she knew about this wonderful program, one that allowed people to be mobile, some for the first time ever, and added an element of fun to their lives.
"I went along thinking I could offer help and walked away happier than I had been in a long time," she noted.
For McBeath, the beauty of the program is the confidence it instills in the participants. She tells the story of one young man who was loaned a wheelchair to use for sports. "He went on to get a job at [a local department store] as a greeter and now is in charge of the electronics department. Once they realize they have abilities, their lives change," she said.
Right now McBeath is the only Canadian volunteering with the organization. She has written to Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan, who uses a wheelchair, Rick Hansen's Man in Motion office and Prime Minister Stephen Harper to find if there is a similar Canadian group doing the same type of volunteer work. So far she's found out there are several different groups that gather used wheelchairs and send them overseas and to Latin America, but no group actually goes and works with the folks receiving the donations.
She stresses the wheelchairs donated by the Mobility Project are in many instances high-end. They allow the users to actively participate in sports. And some of the people who volunteer for Mobility Project are themselves gifted athletes. Many are members of the Para-Olympic team for the United States.
The other beauty of the program for McBeath is the fact that the volunteers pay their own way; the money donated to the program doesn't end up paying for a sunny vacation for someone. She estimates it cost her $1,600 to go to volunteer in Mazatlan this past November. She is planning a similar trip to Costa Rica in April that will set her back $2,000.
McBeath is no slouch in the volunteer department on the Sunshine Coast either. She gives her time to the Festival of the Written Arts and Holy Family Catholic Church and is a brand new member of the local Toastmasters club.
If the Mobility Project interests you, see the website www.mobilityproject.org or email McBeath at [email protected]. McBeath said one day it just came to her, "Oh get out of your misery and get on with it," - a philosophy we all could use.
