Kiwanis plan support for Texas Ramp Projects
The Noon chapter of the Kiwanis club met Wednesday with a member of the Texas Ramp Projects. An organization officially founded in 2006 that has built “100 Miles” of ramps for Texas residents who would otherwise be homebound. A ramp at a person’s home could be the difference between living longer and reaching safety incase of an emergency.
John Laine came to meet with members of Kiwanis and Lion club representatives to see about creating a team of volunteers who would be building ramps for residents in our area who have a need. The demand for ramps is growing across the State. The Texas Ramp Project (TRP) will provide lumber and tools, if a group is going to build a certain number of ramps per year.
TRP will work with groups on how to build a ramp and make the process easier and more streamlined. But they need volunteers or local area clubs to take up the job of organizing to make the project happen.
Not a lot of people know about the project and the work they do. But TRP does have teams all over the state of Texas who provide ramps for people in need.
Kiwanis wants to work with other local area clubs and churches to make this project happen in our community. A modular construction practice helps to reduce time on a job site and reduces the number of volunteers needed to build and install ramps. The ramps do not take many people to build, or very long to build once you have the process down.
All referrals come from a third-party health care provider. They do not come from the person in need directly. The ramp is almost like a prescription, home health or doctor’s office make the request and the ramp project sends it out to the area club to be built and installed.
Someone must survey the site first to determine what type of ramp will be needed and the amount of space the ramp will be taking up. The surveyor talks with the person in need and determines if they may need flat resting areas to establish turns.
The group of volunteers will frame everything out including a handrail. The use of pressure treated plywood, will be the rolling surface for the ramp. Much of which can be pre-made and held in a storage facility until the time comes, when a ramp needs to be installed.
The TRP receives most of their funding from grant money. Which allows them to operate on a $2 million dollar budget for the year. Currently, they don’t have the capacity to build all the referrals they get. They are only building about 40% in any given year, because of lack of volunteers.
TRP has designed build templates to use, so they don’t have to measure when they build. This has made the process go faster and smoother. Which allows for better use of volunteer time and efforts, in pre-fabrication of supplies.
Please consider volunteering your time to the Texas Ramp Project in our area, so that local residents can be giving the freedom to leave their homes.
Contributed by Allison Libby-Thesing
