Let’s face it, a lot of us are using Amazon these days! Did you know that you can support BORP while shopping there?
Amazon Smile is a program that donates .5% of every eligible Amazon purchase to the charity of your choice. Here’s how to set it up:
Go to www.smile.amazon.com and select BORP to receive donations. Bookmark this page and use it for all your future purchases.
Get detailed instructions and answers to your questions about Amazon Smile here.
BORP has received notice that we are being awarded a Federal FTA 5310 grant for the purchase of a new large accessible bus for our group trip transportation services. The new bus will be a much-needed replacement for our older vehicle and will ensure continued high quality transportation services for BORP programs.
Please see updates regarding COVID-19 and the impact to BORP programming, below. Check back here or the BORP Facebook Page regularly for more updates as this is a rapidly changing situation.
For anyone in need of assistance with food, finances, or other resources, the following are helpful links:
List of Resources from ABC Channel 7
List of Resources from City of Berkeley
List of Resources from City of Oakland
Alameda County Community Food Bank
San Francisco/Marin Food Bank
City and County of San Francisco Human Services Agency – Updates for Older Adults and People with Disabilities
Guidance from State of CA on COVID-19 for people with access & functional needs
Additionally, the Senior/Disability/Worker Mutual Aid Network has an online form you can complete to request or offer support.
This is a “Know Your Rights” toolkit for people facing potential triage discrimination based in disability or weight: http://nobodyisdisposable.org/know-your-rights/
Kids everywhere can instantly stream an incredible collection of stories, including titles across six different languages, that will help them continue dreaming, learning, and just being kids.
The City of Berkeley has opened up grant applications to support residents and businesses facing COVID-19 hardships. Application information available here:
https://www.cityofberkeley.info/City_Manager/Press_Releases/2020/2020-03-30_COVID-19_hardship_grants_for_renters,_small_businesses,_arts,_and_nonprofit_orgs.aspx
In the current COVID-19 health crisis, people with disabilities are at double risk. The virus itself hits people with underlying conditions harder, and long-standing discrimination in our healthcare system means that people with disabilities are most likely to bear the burden of “rationing” measures that hospitals and providers will put into place.
Designed to print-at-home or download to your phone, DREDF and Disability Rights California (DRC)’s Know Your Disability Healthcare Rights sheets can help disabled people and family members assert and defend their rights to medical care. The information includes DRC’s toll-free number to call if you run into a problem with a hospital or doctor.
The Know Your Disability Healthcare Rights sheets (California Edition) should be printed at home or downloaded to your cell phone. Take it with you when you seek medical care.
The California Edition of the Know Your Disability Healthcare Rights sheets are currently available in English-Spanish (PDF) and English-Chinese (PDF). They will soon be available in English-Vietnamese, English-Tagalog, and English-Korean.
In order to protect participants from possible exposure to the COVID-19 virus, BORP has suspended all our Adventures and Outings programming until March 29. Please check this page, the BORP Facebook Page, or emails from BORP for any updates.
BORP’s mission is to serve individuals with physical disabilities and vision impairments. In the Fitness Studio we also serve many seniors and others with mobility impairments.
In order to protect the most vulnerable among us and due to the impossibility of guaranteeing a germ-free space, we have decided to take a break from all classes held in the studio from now through March 31st.
We will be assessing the current COVID 19 situation and will re-open when deemed appropriate. Please check the BORP Facebook page on news about when we plan to re-open. We look forward to welcoming participants back to the Fitness Center after we find our way through this community health challenge.
The BORP Jr. Road Warriors took 2nd place in this exciting wheelchair basketball tournament, Feb 8-9, involving 10 teams and 90 athletes from 6 states.
The Jr. Road Warriors had wins over Utah, and Rancho (Los Angeles) before suffering their first loss to Seattle. The bounce back game against ParaSport set them up for the rematch against Seattle in the final. Congratulations to Seattle for the win and the championship!
Several Jr. Road Warriors received academic honors, including Sage Burtis, Avery Dauer, and Ella Rodriguez. Ben Thornton was named to the All-Tournament Team.
The tournament marked the final home games for Ben Thornton and Garnett Silver-Hall. These amazing young athletes have been accepted into the University of Arizona and both will be playing basketball in Tucson next year. Congratulations Garnett and Ben!
This year, the BORP Annual Hall of Fame and Awards Celebration will honor the women of BORP. It’s no surprise, of course, that women athletes and leaders have made important contributions to BORP, but many people may not realize that BORP was started in 1976 by two young female CAL students, Susan Sygall and Diane Schechter. Given that BORP started as a sports program at a time when there was little equity and visibility for women in sports, having women in these and many other leadership roles at BORP was remarkable. Today, women and girls continue to contribute immensely to BORP, making up the majority of staff, playing key volunteer roles, and participating as dedicated and outstanding athletes.
On June 19, we will celebrate the achievements and contributions of the following women and girls:
Susie Grimes
Kristi Hruzewicz
Ella Rodriguez
The Women of Quadzilla (Bonnie Lewkowicz, Sun Chan, Val Brown, Susie Grimes, Megan Schirle, Ann Cupolo-Freeman & Lori McLeod)
We will also honor The Clif Bar Family Foundation for their longstanding and generous support of BORP.
Lindsay Gottlieb, Head Coach of the Women’s Basketball team at UC, Berkeley will keynote the event.
All proceeds from the event will benefit BORP.
Please join us!
YES! I want to celebrate the outstanding women and girls of BORP!
Elaine Beale recently joined the BORP staff in the newly created position of Development Director. We spent a little time talking to Elaine and getting to know more about her.
BORP: Tell us a little bit about yourself
Elaine: I grew up in Northern England and attended the University of London before moving to the Bay Area in 1989—just in time to experience the Loma Prieta Earthquake! I’ve now lived in Oakland for almost 30 years and consider it my hometown.
BORP: How did you first learn about BORP?
Elaine: When I was working as the Development Director at the National Housing Law Project, one of my co-workers had a son with cerebral palsy who participated in BORP programs. He would come by the office fairly regularly and often talked about how much he loved BORP. He helped raise funds for BORP activities and I donated several times. Years later, my partner also became a BORP donor when one of her co-workers started participating in BORP programs.
BORP: What are your hobbies?
Elaine: I love to write and to read. I also enjoy being outdoors—bicycling, hiking, and gardening are some of my favorite activities. I’m a keen photographer and I like to cook. I like to travel, and in the last four years I have been lucky enough to travel to New Zealand, Vietnam, Spain, Panama and Costa Rica, as well as back to the UK to visit family and friends. Right now, I’m trying to figure out where I want to go next!
BORP: What are you passionate about?
Elaine: For the last 10 years, I’ve taught creative writing at The Writing Salon in Berkeley. Because I love writing myself, it’s inspiring to support others who want to grow as writers and build their writing skills. While I can sometimes feel overwhelmed with all the negative happenings in the world, I really believe that when people engage in art and find their creative voice, it contributes to positive change.
BORP: What are you most excited about in your new position as BORP’s Development Director?
Elaine: BORP has such a strong and positive reputation in the community, and has a wonderful impact on so many people’s lives. I’m really excited to help the organization tell its story, reach more supporters, and raise the funds that will help sustain BORP and allow it to grow.
BORP: What’s a secret talent that no one knows about?
Elaine: Hmmm, I can be pretty handy around the house—I’ve laid floors, glazed windows, installed insulation and drywall, and put in plumbing, among other things. But I’d rather keep that a secret if you don’t mind, since I really don’t enjoy doing it.
Leia Cash
Leia Cash teaches World Dance For All! every Thursday from 1-2pm. The styles she draws from include but are not limited to: salsa, cha cha, merengue, swing, African, Brazilian samba, “old school” funk, disco and more. “I’m so excited to be teaching at BORP because it reaches out to MY community here in the East Bay and welcomes everybody regardless of what kind of body and abilities they have. The opportunity to dance and move with you is so close to my heart.”
A lot of BORP participants and families already know Ariel Smith-Iyer who has been working at BORP’s Adaptive Cycling Center for the last year. Recently, however, Ariel has taken on a new role at BORP as the Fitness Studio Coordinator. We caught up with Ariel and asked her a few questions about her new job… and a few other random ones, just for fun.
BORP: Tell us a little bit about yourself
Ariel: I grew up in a small town in New Hampshire and attended college in Maine for two years before coming to California. One of my sisters was starting graduate school at UCLA and I jumped at the chance to live somewhere new. We packed up a little U-Haul and drove further west than we’d ever been before. It was 1998 and the mix tape we made for the journey was incompatible with the radio-only stereo system, which itself was no match for the vast Arizona desert, where pressing the SEEK button gave you as many tunes as turning the dial to OFF. LA was definitely a culture shock but it blew my world open in so many great ways. My first job in the field of disability work was there, at UCLA’s Office for Students with Disabilities.
BORP: How did you first learn about BORP?
Ariel: I moved to San Francisco in 2004 and took a teaching job at a small independent middle and high school for students with learning disabilities. In my second year there one of my middle school PE students started playing wheelchair basketball with BORP. All her life she had gotten around on crutches but was finding she needed a wheelchair more and more. Playing wheelchair basketball transformed her relationship with her chair and gave her an opportunity to play competitive sports. I knew then I wanted to be a part of this work.
BORP: If you could be any animal, which would you be?
Ariel: Hmm, I’ve always been a big fan of elephants but I’m not sure their time on this planet is long. I’d probably choose to be a bee because I love being part of a team, visiting flowers all day sounds dreamy and flying would just be amazing!
BORP: What are you passionate about?
Ariel: When I started teaching middle school PE the classes were broken into two: I taught the girls, the male teacher taught the boys. This didn’t really make sense for these kids and I proposed we create a cooperative and a competitive group into which kids could self-select. It was perfect! I taught the cooperative group and my passion for supporting the under-dog took flight. I’m also a big fan of waste reduction and compost bins.
BORP: What are you most excited about in your new position as BORP’s Fitness Studio Coordinator?
Ariel: I’m excited to try out some new ideas, to learn what types of classes would draw in new participants (tell me!) and to strengthen and support the already great class offerings we have- we have some fanTASTIC teachers! My pie-in-the-ski right now is to create a scholarship fund so that our classes can be affordable for even more people. Working at the Cycling Center the last 12 months has been really awesome- we have the world’s largest collection of adapted cycles, by a factor of FOUR! I feel well situated, knowing that program so well and coming into this new one at the Fitness Studio. We may have a ways to go before we have a superlative like that to brag about but I’m stoked to keep building on the work done before me at the Fitness Studio, by teachers and coordinators alike, to keep our door open, broaden what we have to offer and make it accessible to more people.
BORP: What’s your secret talent that no one knows about?
Ariel: I’m a whiz at parallel parking and I have *great* parking karma 🙂
Thanks to the efforts of their teacher Laurin Kennedy a group of students from Oakland’s Cole School came on their first field trip to BORP in March. All of the students from Cole are nonverbal and wheelchair users and none of them had ever cycled before. Everyone got on a bike for at least one lap around Aquatic Park, and everyone had a great time. We asked Laurin what she thought of their first BORP experience:
Group photo of the kids from Oakland’s Cole School at the BORP Cycling center
BORP had a wonderful and meaningful impact on the lives of each of my students. Adaptive cycling opened a whole new world to them that they’d never had the opportunity to explore before. Each of my students has moderate/severe physical and intellectual disabilities, so they each require specialized equipment to access physical activity. BORP provided that equipment for us, helped us select the most appropriate adaptive cycle for each student, and then organized and facilitated a ride. My students had a blast!
If I had to pick one student who enjoyed his time most, I would choose Darius. Darius suffers from a neurodegenerative illness that has steadily robbed him of his physical and cognitive abilities over time. In the past, he was a typically developing child who had control over his mind and body. As an adult, Darius is often frustrated because he cannot do the things he used to do as a young boy. When he was on the adaptive cycle, he seemed to be more happy and free that I’ve ever seen him. The cycle allowed him to move his legs in ways that he is unable to when he is confined to his wheelchair. He seemed to really enjoy the wind in his hair, moving his legs, and spending time with his mother, classmates, and teachers in a fun environment.
The best part of BORP’s cycling program is how invested the staff are to help our students. BORP transported our classroom to and from school using the Borp bus, took the time and energy to help us pick out the most appropriate equipment, helped lift/transfer our adult students using their in-house lift, and then supported us on an adaptive cycling ride. For 10 adult students, this is not an easy task. Everyone at Borp was so supportive and had a great attitude throughout our whole experience. That’s what really made our whole trip even more meaningful.
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3075 Adeline Street, Suite 200
Berkeley, CA 94703-2578 |
info@borp.org
Phone: 510-849-4663 |
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