{"id":5892,"date":"2017-04-04T14:03:22","date_gmt":"2017-04-04T18:03:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/groups.etown.edu\/news\/?p=5892"},"modified":"2017-04-05T15:02:55","modified_gmt":"2017-04-05T19:02:55","slug":"engineering-students-resurrect-scooter-to-offer-independence-to-mobility-challenged-community-member","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/2017\/04\/04\/engineering-students-resurrect-scooter-to-offer-independence-to-mobility-challenged-community-member\/","title":{"rendered":"Engineering students offer independence to mobility-challenged community member"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>

Elizabethtown College Social Work student Rocco Hladney with Merl and his new scooter.<\/p><\/div>\n

Every couple of days a group of engineering students huddled over a personal scooter, searching for a clue to why it wasn\u2019t working. They had tasked themselves with getting the unit running and usable to present to a young Elizabethtown community man who lives with mobility issues.<\/p>\n

There were always three or four of them, tooling over the unit, said Mark Gatti, manager of engineering laboratories at Elizabethtown College. It was in the spirit of the College\u2019s \u2018educate to serve\u2019 maxim when they asked for space to do the work. \u201cOur engineering students think about the motto,\u201d Gatti said. \u201cIt had nothing to do with a class. It was totally on their own.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though the process took several months, the students persevered. \u201cI was asked to not do the work for them but point them in the right direction,\u201d said Gatti. So he gave them the space and tools and set them loose.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it came in, it didn\u2019t work,\u201d he said. \u201cThe client had attempted to try to revive it\u201d but had been unsuccessful. The students, he said, took a few things apart, pulled the batteries out to see if they were viable and made sure the charging system was working properly.<\/p>\n

\n

Our engineering students think about the motto.\u201d<\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This was actually the second scooter they had attempted to fix. The first came in last year–they were donated to Elizabethtown Community Housing and Outreach Services (ECHOS) for clients with physical challenges — with problems in the electric board. This posed a liability issue the School didn\u2019t want to worry about, Gatti said, so the first scooter was sidelined.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Merl, the scooter\u2019s recipient, is in his mid-30s. He deals with physical pain on a daily basis due to cerebral palsy. \u201cWalking,\u201d said Janice Davis, administrative assistant in the College\u2019s Biology Department, and founder of the winter shelter in Elizabethtown \u201cis especially uncomfortable, and it\u2019s getting progressively worse.<\/p>\n

Last year, Merl was a client of the Elizabethtown winter shelter and, though he is now living independently, some of his needs are still addressed by Elizabethtown Community Housing and Outreach Services (ECHOS).<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first thought when we heard about Merl is how do we get E-town students involved?\u201d said Peggy McFarland, professor of social work.<\/p>\n

Social work student Rocco Hladney stepped up. \u201cIt\u2019s one of his responsibilities to work with Merl,\u201d she said. Hladney is working in an internship with ECHOS. \u201cIt\u2019s a good project to reach out. The scooter would really help with independence.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the students addressed the mechanical problems, and a professor came forward with money to purchase a viable battery, the scooter was ready for delivery for Merl.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve seen him cutting through town on it,\u201d Davis said. \u201cKnowing his personality, it is important to him to have more mobility to get into town.\u201d The physical pain of walking was too much. \u201cHe is joyful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t say enough how proud I am of the college, the students and the volunteers who work with the program and their willingness, like this, to go the extra mile to help clients\u2019 needs,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing is too big to overcome.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every couple of days a group of engineering students huddled over a personal scooter, searching for a clue to why it wasn\u2019t working. They had tasked themselves with getting the unit running and usable to present to a young Elizabethtown community man who lives with mobility issues. There were always three or four of them, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":5893,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,6],"tags":[490,70,1128,103],"class_list":["post-5892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-real-world-learning","category-service","tag-achievements-2","tag-engineering","tag-feature","tag-social-work","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5892"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5892\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5913,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5892\/revisions\/5913"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}