Can I pick everyone's brains a bit? I'm always amazed at the wide areas of knowledge that you folks have. I have an odd, way-OT question to throw out to you.
As some of you may know, my friend and sole employee has a very ill child, and she's trying to build him an occupational therapy room. (If anyone would like to find out more, PM me your e-mail address and I'll forward a Newspaper article, letters and a CD-ROM I made; Mom's blog is at
Just for Justin ). It's not my intention to lay out the grisly details.
The extremely short story is that, due to multiple diseases and disabilities, her child can't regulate his body temperature and play outside when it's cold. Last year, this lead to self-injurious behavior that landed him in two hospitals for a total of eight months… two in a coma over thanksgiving and Christmas of last year and six months out of state in another hospital after. Through community and business donations, she's had an old barn on the property knocked down and tomorrow, a modest single-room building is being built to replace it.
She's had great community support up to this point, but she's not sure (and I don't have answers for her) as to possible ways of having any OT equipment donated. I'm going to try to build some of the things myself, but wonder if anyone here has any ideas? She needs things such as a hot tub (regulates his temp), trampoline, and general climbing-type "structures". I'm probably not explaining this well… think of the types of things that are found in a typical outdoor playground, then think smaller, simpler, more modest.
I've recommended that
maybe some gyms might have some suitable equipment that has been replaced, but past that and what I might be able to build, have no real suggestions, and the situation is getting a bit more desperate due to the colder weather and snow.
Anyone have any ideas as to how used equipment could be found?
