Our days at GOAT Space are a lively whirl of buildout, inventory, volunteers, and visitors coming in! I want to try to describe what I can remember of this past week.
We found cushions, backrests, seat slings, tires, and footrests for people coming in, and also for sharing with the CIL and ReCares! It is great when we get to hang out with people like Anna and CC from ReCares and of course the entire CIL crew.
We had many volunteers come in on different days, including my mom and dad, Dewi, and nearly everyone who dropped by, for “Bolt University”, a silly name for our big table where we are sorting out nuts, bolts, washers, and screws into logical groupings. We have several more enormous buckets of this stuff to get through for the initial rough sort. Then, a more detailed sort so that we can get things separated by thread count, width, length and other qualities!
Corbett came in to consult with Olga about a custom shoe/foot holder they are building together, and she also brought in Teresa, who she met on the street whose rollator needed a lot of work. We fixed up the brakes on her rollator, cleaned out the wheels, and figured out what needed tightening up, while Teresa sat and had tea and snacks and watched how we adjusted the brake cables. Our search for the right nuts and bolts to replace missing ones was helped greatly by the Bolt University table! And Teresa was very happy to get rid of the multiple rubber bands and hair ties she had been using to hold the walker frame together, and to have spare nuts and bolts in her new toolkit.
C. came by to pick up her mom’s battered Everest and Jennings folding manual chair. I had tackled this one considering it more my speed (easy mode) to fix up. It took me a few hours to overhaul it with new armrests, a seat sling, and new spacers and bolts in the brakes. The old bolts were almost completely stripped of their thread. From the look of this chair and the wear on it, I thought it must be over 20 years old, but it turns out the model has only been around since 2019.
While I was fixing the brakes, my friend Tiffany (The ADHD PHD) came by for us to go to lunch, and peppered me with questions. Why did the brakes fail? (broken spacer washers) What exactly was the material of the old washers that I suggested had broken and fallen out? (dunno maybe nylon or teflon) Did I have one of the broken washers for her to analyze under an electron microscope? (What? No! Cool though!) She took a nylon (?) washer that I was using as a replacement to analyze it and will let me know if she can come up with what materials they SHOULD be made from.
I can’t remember why Mia showed up, I think for the tour of the space which she heard about from the Tune Up event at the DCC, but also to investigate whether we had spare broken wheelchairs she could use in a planned sculpture work that will contribute to her occupation of the Pioneer monument in San Francisco. She ended up doing some more work on her chair and then helping me with the E&J seat sling replacement!
Asher came by to talk about standing frames with Olga, and ended up doing some work on his manual chair.
Asher, who is in the Physician’s Assistant program at Merritt College, had been working on accommodations with the college and various agencies but they were a bit stuck on how to best get Asher to be able to participate in the anatomy class’s cadaver lab for dissections. The tables are at a standing height and some of them are adjustable so one could be lowered, but then Asher would still not be in position from a manual chair to bend over and do the work, and other students in the group at the same table would have to bend way over or sit down themselves (somehow not considered a serious option). So they were looking at standing frames or sit to stand hybrid chairs, which are quite expensive and even if they could be funded, would not be obtainable in time for class. We were all kind of excited to support there being another wheelchair using, disabled professional in the medical field. Olga suggested a powerchair with raise and tilt. We had one nearly in working order from a recent donation. Olga tore into it like a determined whirlwind and had it going by the end of the afternoon!
The next day Asher came back with a friend to try it out and take it to the lab. Me, Ian, and Olga all trooped off partly out of mad curiosity to see the cadaver lab but partly to just show up en masse in all our crip, wheely glory. I think it is powerful in itself when you are asking for accomodations to show up with a squad; or just to have other disabled people or wheelchair users in the daily context where usually, it’s just you. So we went as a solidarity task force too and were taken upstairs by the friendly facilities guy.
The dissecting tables have a foot rest part that was not moveable but we got it all into position so that the powerchair’s footrest was above the table support, one armrest could be raised, and the joystick arm easily positionable as well, with a seatbelt harness so that Asher could safely lean over with a scalpel in hand and scientific gleam in his eye.
Praise came by to pick up armrests we found that fit their chair, and some other useful things. We met last week when Praise came in (with their leashed service cat in a backpack!) “off of an instagram post” to work on her manual wheelchair, a sporty orange Kia.
Praise wants to come back and volunteer for GOAT in the shop and also making flyers with us! This is one of my favorite parts of having this physical space. It is becoming a real community hub, and so many people who come in, end up coming back to be a part of it and make it a vibrant, lively place to be and learn and create !
Thursday and Friday I wasn’t around, but I heard that local athlete and advocate C. stopped by for a look at our cushion selection for her own chair. She has already come by to volunteer in the past! And, Tower and Juno ended up doing some interesting and fun modifications for C., who has a large sign on the back of her chair. They added a custom made holder for C.’s reacher-grabber, added a bag she could get to (that would not block the sign), and added some extra lumbar supports!
That is not even everything, but it’s long enough of a story for now. A week in the life of GOAT Space!
Please come by if you’re local or travelling in the area! You are very welcome.
And, if you enjoyed this post, and want to support more of these amazing hijinks, PLEASE DONATE! Not just donating broken assistive tech, but cold hard (digital) cash via direct donation link, or via joining our Patreon!