Yehuda Tebbitt was pushing his young son Shmuely Tebbitt, rolling him in his cheap, rickety wheelchair across the street when pieces started falling off of it.
“He wasn’t off-roading,”said Yehuda, clearly frustrated. “We’re talking about just pushing him along sidewalks.”
Yehuda’s insurance connects him with an agency that provides his son with a terrible wheelchair, he said. It’s heavy. It doesn’t roll easily. It’s confining.
Now Shmuely, 14, has been set free, with a state-of-the-art $6,500 wheelchair donated by the Bryon Riesch Paralysis Foundation of Waukesha. It was an idea from Shmuely’s 13-year-old friend, Avi Pullin.
“The first time we thought about getting Shmuely a wheelchair, a new wheelchair, is when he couldn’t go places that we could. We were really bummed out because he couldn’t hang out with us,”said Avi, who attends Hillel Academy with Shmuely.
Avi’s mother is a lawyer and she suggested applying for a grant. “She did the legal work and we did the emotional work,” Avi said.
“My friends and I sat down and we each wrote a letter to the foundation,” he said. “We talked about how this would be a life-changing moment for him and his family.”
The Bryon Riesch Paralysis Foundation came through, with Bryon Riesch himself joining Shmuely, Avi, classmates, Hillel Academy staff and local media for a press conference on Tuesday, Dec. 22.
Riesch is paralyzed from the waist down, after diving onto a Slip ‘N Slide as a Marquette University student in 1998. Today, the foundation that bears his name raises funds through golf outings and other events, directing its cash towards research and help for people like Shmuely.
Shmuely was born with spina bifida, a condition initially revealed in a prenatal ultrasound, and he’s had several surgeries.
Yehuda, currently a full-time student, expressed deep gratitude for the wheelchair, noting that he’s sometimes heard promises of assistance that never materializes. This time was different.
Shmuely himself took to the podium to thank the foundation and those who helped obtain the grant. “Before, like my friend Avi Pullin had said, I wasn’t able to do very much in terms of getting with my friends and being able to hang out and stuff like that,”he said.
“You kids are amazing,”Riesch told the group, adding that he could not be “more proud to be involved.”
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