Meet Stacie Morris. Stacie is a 29-year-old single mom with Cerebral Palsy. For years Stacie used a wheelchair to get around, but after she left home she was determined to change her life.
She ditched her chair and started walking everywhere. But once she had her daughter, she needed something else. She was able to get assistance to purchase an electric scooter.
The scooter is how Stacie gets her groceries and does her errands. Stacie also uses the scooter to get to her volunteer job at the Women’s Centre where she is the coordinator of the Luna Wellness clinic.
While she loves to walk, it is slow going and it is impossible to carry much home when she is walking.
Stacie really enjoys her scooter. She plugs in her earphones and goes.
“I get outside and have fun with it. It is really the only thrill I get.”
Her daughter is four and rides on Stacie’s lap; with her hands on the handle bars it looks like she is driving it.
The advantage of the scooter is that it only uses hydro power. In the summer she can go across town and back twice before she has to recharge it.
“It is cheap; I don’t have to pay for insurance or gas and I don’t have to have a driver’s license.”
There are a couple of downsides. She needs a place to keep the scooter near her living area so she has to live in an apartment that allows her to do that.
“And winter sucks too.” The battery doesn’t stay charged for very long and she has to be really careful to make sure it doesn’t go dead on her. It doesn’t go very well in anything deeper than four inches of snow either.
“And the last few weeks it has been raining and gross so I have to carry an umbrella in one hand and drive with the other.”
The one thing Stacie stressed is that “there are people who take it for granted that they can walk but still they use their cars to go to the corner store when they could get outside and walk. We live in a beautiful city and people should get out and walk and enjoy it.”
–submitted by Maureen Trotter