District of 100 Mile House Councillor Dave Mingo welcomed Avril Harris, of the Let's Play Program, to 100 Mile House Elementary School recently.
Harris brought 16 wheelchairs for the students to try.
The program is intended to assist students with mobility limitations to become physically active early in life by helping establish the fundamental skills, knowledge and abilities that develop physical literacy and allow them to confidently participate in play, sports and physical education with their peers.
As part of his welcome, Mingo had an opportunity to try one of the sports wheelchairs, and wheeled it forward and backwards in the gym. He notes it is easier pushing it straight, but manoeuvring, turning around and going backwards, is harder than it looks. "It is good to have kids experience wheelchair athletics and you can participate with or without a disability.”
Let's Play Program also went to the Mile 108 Elementary School, where principal Tom Turner says it was a great day with all of the students having a chance to participate in the place of a physically challenged person.
“Avril was excellent. He was energetic and tried to get the students into a frame of mind of a physically challenged person.”
Students were amazed at how much work it took to participate. The other thing they learned was how to be a participant with a mobility-challenged person, he adds, and how they can help without doing it for them.
The program also made stops at a number of other schools in the South Cariboo.