Monday, May 20, 2013

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8/30/2012 - West Side Leader
     

By Letter to the Editor

To the editor:

Ronnie Cable, of Bath, who participated in the “Lose the Training Wheels” bike camp sponsored by the Autism Society of Ohio, Greater Akron, ended the week riding on a two-wheel bike, as shown above.

Photo courtesy of Laurie Cramer

The Autism Society of Ohio, Greater Akron’s first “Lose The Training Wheels” (LTTW) bike camp for individuals with disabilities was a resounding success.

We would like to congratulate the 40 riders who worked so hard to learn to ride a two-wheel bicycle. Also, a big thank you to our 50-plus volunteers, who had one of the toughest workouts during one of the hottest weeks on record but gave it their all for these riders; we could not have done it without them!

By the end of the week, we had some wonderful stories — from campers, volunteers and families — about how the week changed their lives. One camper on Monday was too afraid to get on the bike at all; by the end of the week, he was riding all over the place. A volunteer whose mother urged him to work at the bike camp while he was looking for a job left thinking about going back to school to become a special education teacher. One father shared our tears when our “Friday Surprise” rolled away on her two-wheel bike. We confessed to him that we had deemed her the “Friday Surprise” on Tuesday because while she wasn’t the obvious one for riding a two-wheel bike by the end of the week, the LTTW staff had a hunch she was going to surprise all of us … and she did.

We also would like to thank Brian Poe, the superintendent of Copley-Fairlawn City Schools, for partnering with us by allowing us to use the Copley High School gym and parking lot. Copley staff were wonderfully accommodating, and it made a huge difference to the success of the camp.

Finally, a big thanks to Lisa Thompson, who volunteers as a board member of the Autism Society of Ohio, Greater Akron, who organized the camp. As camp director, Lisa handled all of the details during her “spare time” after work, in between family commitments and other volunteer work she does with the school. It’s volunteers like Lisa that make the Autism Society what it is here in Akron.

To learn more about the Autism Society of Ohio, Greater Akron, go to www.autismsocietygreaterakron.org or follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/GreaterAkron.

Laurie Cramer, director of the Akron Office of the Autism Society of Ohio, Fairlawn

     

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