Ruffin T.

Thanks to the help of Project Captain Darrald Barajas and his Blitz Build Volunteer Crew, Ruffin and his family now have a safe way to enter and exit their house.

“The ramp built by the world’s sweetest volunteers (during the Ramp Blitz 2014) has literally and figuratively changed the lives of everyone in our family – not just our eight year-old son, for whom we needed the ramp, but all of us (parents and older sibling, too). The ramp has given our son the ability to on his own get from the house into the garage (and vice versa).

Prior to the ramp, it was me (or his daddy) gracelessly lifting him down or up the steep steps. Honestly, years of that in addition to bringing all his goods (plus our own) from the house into the garage had taken their toll and that simple act had become stressful. Every time we needed to go for a car ride would start with me getting tense about how I was going to transport him and all his stuff down those steps (he cannot be left alone which is why I couldn’t make umpteen trips). My son picked up on that, fighting me carrying him from the house into the garage, which made me tense up even more, and so the cycle would begin; our older child was not immune to the stress factory.

However, from our son’s initial walk on the ramp we could tell it would work – he just gamboled down and then up, as happy as could be: he really likes teeter-tottering up and down his ramp! It’s funny how something so small can have such an enormous and deliciously all-encompassing impact. We measure time from “before ramp” to “blissfully after,” and I can honestly say we haven’t had a stressful time getting from car to house or house to car since. That ramp has not only enabled our son to propel himself, it has saved my sanity!” – – Brooke W., mother of 2014 recipient Ruffin