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Riders Welcome 'Drive-Through' Wheelchair Wash

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Riders Welcome 'Drive-Through' Wheelchair Wash

Volunteers and disabled celebrate anniversary of disabilities act

with a thorough scrubbing.

By Caitlin Liu, Times Staff Writer

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-

wheelchair1aug01,1,2763014.story

Lena Reno knew the time had come to give her electric scooter a good

scrub-down when she saw that someone had scrawled " wash me " into the

dust.

But months passed before the West Covina woman, who has multiple

sclerosis, could do anything about it.

" My range of ability is very limited, " said Reno, 57, who lives

alone. " I can't stretch — I have to hold on to something. With MS, my

balance is bad. "

On Sunday, Reno was among dozens of disabled people from Los Angeles

County who rolled into a Boyle Heights parking lot to waiting

volunteers bearing yellow sponges and buckets of soapy suds. Some

volunteers tooth-brushed wheelchair nooks and crevices in ways that

would have made car detailers proud.

" It's just like a drive-through car wash, " said Reno, leaning back in

her seat as five volunteers wiped her handlebars and wheel rims, as

well as the back of the scooter where the " wash me " demand — written

by a neighbor child, she believes — had been.

" Oh, it's nice and shiny now…. It's blue! It's not gray anymore, " she

said.

Across the U.S., an estimated 6.8 million people use devices to

assist them with mobility, according to the Disability Statistics

Center at UC San Francisco. That includes about 1.7 million

wheelchair or scooter riders.

Sunday's Wheelchair Wash event in a parking lot at White Memorial

Medical Center was intended not just as a chance to clean up, but

also as an opportunity to draw disabled people out of their homes,

said organizers from Familia Unida Living with Multiple Sclerosis, a

Los Angeles-based nonprofit.

" Today, the celebration is the diversity of culture, the diversity of

abilities, " said Irma Resendez, executive director of Familia Unida,

which offers support groups and counseling.

The activities, staffed by about 100 volunteers working underneath

colorful, balloon-festooned canopies, commemorated the anniversary of

the Americans with Disabilities Act becoming law in July 1992.

Attendees noted that the years since the sweeping federal law took

effect have seen many changes, including prohibitions against

discrimination by employers and requirements that public facilities

be wheelchair-accessible.

Acosta, a 45-year-old wheelchair basketball player who had

polio as a child, noted the significance of cutting street curbs to

allow easy passage.

" We can leave our homes and not be on the streets, " said Acosta, who

loves his sporty wheelchair. It's a low-backed vehicle that permits

greater upper body movement and has splayed " camber " wheels for rapid

turning. " We can be on sidewalks now. "

" We're just as normal as everybody else, except we don't use our legs

to walk with, " he said. There were other opportunities for pampering —

tents for free manicures and haircuts, food and music.

Vicki Elman, a former secretary at UCLA, hadn't had a haircut in more

than a year. The last time the 54-year-old San Dimas woman went for a

trim, she said the stylist refused to go near her, calling

her " contagious. "

" MS — it's not contagious, " said Elman, who said she left rather

than " getting into a fight. "

On Sunday, Elman tried to hold her head still as volunteer

Soria — a beauty school student — trimmed her amber tresses into long

layers.

" To be able to come here and get your hair done, get your wheelchair

washed, and eat, and the camaraderie, " Elman said, " it makes you feel

like you're normal. "

Under the main tent, the corps of volunteers included employees from

Union Bank and White Memorial Hospital and Los Angeles Mayor

Villaraigosa — who toweled off wheelchairs.

Harley stein, a 47-year-old Long Beach resident, whose own chair

was scrubbed by Villaraigosa, said he hadn't yet been able to check

out the quality of the mayor's handiwork. " I'm sure it's excellent, "

he said.

Having a dirty wheelchair is not only unsightly but bad for self-

esteem, participants said.

" A wheelchair to me, it's like what you wear, " said stein, a

member of the Los Angeles County Commission on Disabilities. " It's

part of you…. When it's clean, you're clean. "

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