July 7 - July 14, 2007
An enthusiastic team of seventeen volunteers and board members joined us at the Mazatlan Hub for our third week that summer. The team was very diverse including half youth volunteers, many of their families, the board of directors and an Occupational Therapist and Prostestist. This team was very GUNG-HO and continued the work started by the previous teams in the wheelchair repair shop. They built two new racks to store wheelchairs and parts, rearranged the wheelchair repair shop, constructed dollies to hold the newly organized wheelchair parts, labeled the warehouse and organized tool kits for future wheelchair distribution teams.

The team finished Rio Hogo and we are happy to report, after a treacherous rain storm, that the engineering behind Rio Hogo was a great success, dry dorms all around! This team also enjoyed working with Jaime each morning assisting him with the Equinotherapy (Horse Therapy) on our campus. They also painted, cleaned and moved into the first newly finished dormitory in Steve Oliver Memorial Hall located near the kitchen on our campus.  The team also helped out at a local disabled orphanage.

The team concluded their week with a pediatric wheelchair distribution that impacted the volunteers, the recipient’s and their families deeply.  During this distribution the team also got the oppurtunity to work with a man named Tonio who was injured only seven months ago in a car accident. Tonio became a C-6 Quadriplegic and the team, staff and other volunteers were able to talk with him for a few hours. They talked with him about emotional struggles, physical struggles, interpersonal and familial struggles, the challenges that face him, how he might choose to approach his life in a wheelchair and much more. Tonio changed the way he viewed himself, his future and quality of life during this distribution and everyone was thrilled be have been a part of his experience.
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