Arlington, Marysville kids with disabilities receive free ramps

ARLINGTON — Every time Chevi Jefferson, 7, descended the slippery wet wooden steps outside her front door on a rainy day, her bus driver, Dana McCollum, would gasp and pray she didn't trip.

ARLINGTON — Every time Chevi Jefferson, 7, descended the slippery wet wooden steps outside her front door on a rainy day, her bus driver, Dana McCollum, would gasp and pray she didn’t trip.

Because Chevi was born with spina bifida and club feet, she can’t support her weight without braces, and has to use either a wheelchair or a walker to get around.

“I wrote a letter to the Master Builders Association, along with my application to get a free ramp built for Chevi, because I wanted them to know why she’s so special,” McCollum said. “Everyone needs to know what a wonderful little girl she is.”

McCollum and Kathy Farrell, the great-aunt with whom Chevi and her twin brother have lived for more than a year in rural Arlington Heights, agreed that Chevi is highly intelligent and empathetic.

“She’s smart as a whip, and she loves school as much as she loves other people,” Farrell said, crediting her grand-niece with constantly making drawings for her friends and asking about their welfare.

McCollum added: “She’s very intuitive to other people’s needs. She’s always bringing other kids notes and pictures of hearts, for their birthdays or just because.”

Chevi herself was impressed at the number of people who descended upon her home May 21 to replace her front steps with an Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant ramp, complete with a flower planter that she helped to paint.

“More and more people keep coming here and talking to me,” Chevi said, as she concentrated on painting flowers and ladybugs.

Project manager Eric Wallace supervised a crew of 18 volunteer laborers, ranging from adult professionals in the construction field to friends and neighbors of the family who’d never built anything before.

“It’s a little challenging to keep this many people productive at once, especially with such a mixed skill set, but this hasn’t actually been that difficult of a house,” Wallace said. “At other houses, we’ve found rotting wood or objects buried where we need to dig to set the supports. I honestly wasn’t expecting this job to be so straightforward.”

Arlington Hardware and Dunn Lumber donated supplies and even chipped in for pizza, which lightened the workers’ mood during the day’s light drizzle.

“They’re already happy to be helping out, though,” Wallace said. “I moved to Washington three and a half years ago, and Washingtonians are great people, but part of their self-reliant and independent character means they’re not so great at asking for help, even though they give it freely.”

McCollum expressed her gratitude to the Master Builders Association for bringing together resources for people who wouldn’t know where to look for them, and Wallace emphasized that everything that’s donated to its ramp-building efforts goes to exactly that.

“It all goes into the ramps,” Wallace said. “There’s no overhead.”

Angie Sievers works in external affairs for the Master Builders Association, deemed Chevi a “sweet soul” and was pleased that her group could “improve her life safety” and “create access to a fundamental need.”

Arlington Mayor Barbara Tolbert, who visited with the volunteers while they were working, praised them for lending their sweat and skills. She also thanked the Master Builders Association and the local businesses who “gave back to their community,” while noting that Chevi benefited from this charity because her school bus driver cared about her so much.

Two Marysville families received ramps from the Master Builders Association and local businesses that same day.

Darrell “Carson” Champine suffered a brain bleed in utero, and wasn’t expected to live past birth. Now 5 years old, he has cerebral palsy, hydrocephalus and severe visual impairment.

Carson’s mother, Alicia Champine, is also raising two daughters, aged 7 years and 18 months. Carson himself is big for is age, weighing 62 pounds, and his motorized wheelchair weighs another 60 pounds.

Up until 20 months ago, Champine and her husband had to carry Carson in and out of their car and house, before they received a wheelchair-accessible van from her parents, which she described as “such a blessing.”

Although Champine heard about the ramp-building event from a friend last year, she was too busy with her new baby to consider applying for it.

But she knew she wanted her son to be able to join the rest of the family in having fun in the backyard, so she was gratified that a seven-member crew from Gamut 360 Holdings could build an ADA-compliant ramp from her back porch into the backyard.

“Carson is sensitive to having a lot of noise and people around, so rather than being out in the community, the backyard is where he prefers to hang out,” Champine said. “Before, all we had were steps leading up to the porch, so he would sit on the deck while we were all doing things out in the yard. This lets us spend more time together as a family.”

Champine looks forward to offering Carson even more opportunities to stay active when a wheelchair platform swing set arrives.

“He loves the movement of swinging,” Champine said.

Gamut 360’s Brian Thompson noted that this marked the fifth year his company has taken part in the event, and added that the concrete prep work was done earlier in the week, which allowed his crew to wrap up quickly that Saturday.

“We had to remove a landing and a couple of bushes, but there was no buried treasure, so to speak,” Thompson said. “A lot of times, we’ll find temporary ramps that are steeper and shorter than they need to be, with no railings. They need to be more secure.”

Families throughout King and Snohomish counties received new ramps during this year’s event. The 37 ramps built this year is the largest number in the 23-year history of the event. Since 1993, more than 370 ramps have been built and $1.7 million of in-kind donations provided.