The charity of some knows no limits
Midway area residents receive wheelchair ramp through donations
BY FRANKLIN HAYES Gulf Breeze News franklin@gulfbreezenews.com

Franklin Hayes/Gulf Breeze News Volunteer Ed Turner uses a nail gun to secure posts and railing to a wheel chair built for a low income and disabled couple in Midway. Materials for the ramp were purchased with a grant from the United Way. The Archers had been unable to access their donated FEMA trailer with out the ramp.

Midway area residents Lorraine and Leslie Archer are both elderly, disabled and wheelchair bound. The couple was nearly left homeless in the wake of the destructive hurricane seasons of 2004 and 2005 and their government disability income does not leave them with many options. The United Way of Santa Rosa County was eventually able to set them up with an American Disabilities Act (ADA) certified Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) trailer as their permanent home, but there was only one problem. The trailer sat nearly four feet off the ground and was inaccessible to the Archers.

Enter Woodbine United Methodist Church in Pace.

In coordination with the Volunteer Florida Foundation, Hands on Pensacola, The United Way and several corporate sponsors, the church was able to pool enough resources to build the Archers an access ramp for their donated home.

"If people need help, we'll help them. It doesn't matter where they live or what their circumstances are," said Jimmy Ray with Woodbine United Methodist. "We've traveled as far as Ponce de Leon and Seminole."

The Archers have not yet seen the latest addition to their new abode, as they are visiting the Veterans Affairs Hospital in Biloxi, Miss. Leslie Archer underwent his second leg amputation at the VA hospital there.

His wife Lorraine said Leslie built ramps for others before becoming 100 percent disabled himself.

"I'm very thankful with all my heart," Loraine Archer said. "That's pretty good, I'm Catholic and the Methodists are helping me. That's how Christians are."

United Way supplied $3,000 for materials from an National Football League (NFL) grant and the church supplied the helping hands. Volunteers spent an entire day constructing the Archer's ramp Saturday, Feb. 3.

Local United Way administrator Stirling Boomhower said this is just one example of many recovery projects taking place in Santa Rosa County. Since 2004, the local United Way has received $78,000 in grant funding from the NFLthat can be used for building materials.

"It's just the greatest thing in the world that's come across our doorstep," Boomhower said, adding that Santa Rosa County is the only county in the panhandle area that is taking advantage of the highly publicized NFLprogram.