Queen City ramp marks important milestone for project

The Texas Ramp Project celebrated a distinguished milestone recently at the Thomas Everett home in Queen City.

The ramp being built at the Everett home is part of a Texassized achievement. Since 2006, the project has built 100 miles of similar wood ramp. That’s about the distance from Dallas to Waco.

Last Wednesday at about 9:30 a.m., 10 members of the Cass County Chapter of the Texas Ramp Project arrived, ready to build. They were bringing with them modular sections of a precisely measured and completely customized wooden ramp for the home.

Mr. Everett was not at home. He’d just had an additional unexpected injury, one which would call for his first wheelchair. But Martha Everett was there, almost astounded. It had only been 10 days since she had been in contact with the ramp builders.

Now, here they were, not to talk or sympathize. Not to pause and consider, but to build. The Cass Countians love to finish a USDA-approved ramp within three hours, perhaps an afternoon.

They start and finish, hardly being seen or heard. They are retired men who do this for the good it does them and the client. Their pay is having a good time.

Chapter leader Pete Schroeder of the Eagle Landing Community explains the celebratory nature of the Everett home ramp in particular.

“Since 2006, across the state, the some 3,500 volunteers have built 20,000 ramps. Lay them end to end, and that’s more than enough to go from Dallas to Waco,” Schroeder said.

“Our part during this celebration was to choose one of our ramp projects as one of 200 ramps being built in 40 regions across the state this month. The recognition’s called “100 Miles of Freedom” and has received the governor’s seal.”

The demand is not small. Twelve percent of Texas are over 65. More than a million have a disability.

The Everett home was important symbolically. Here are the basics of the Texas Ramp Project:

■ Volunteers are retired men who meet weekly to build the modules or sections of the ramp that can be transported to the site and installed.

■ Such sites have been surveyed at least two times by chapter leaders and plans drawn up.

■ Ramps are built only at home that have been referred. Direct requests are not handled.

■ The finished ramp is free to its user.

■ The TRP operates with extremely low overhead and has only one full-time paid employee. All else is by donation.

■ For 2020, the TRP budget was $1.427 million for 2,300 ramps.

■ The Cass County chapter of ramp builders, with the Everett home completed, has built 39 ramps this year. That’s 131 total since its start in 2016.

“The joy is doing something for others,” Schroeder said.

“You have brought safety, independence and better quality of life,” the governor’s seal said.

“I’m astounded,” Martha Everett said.

Staff photos by Neil Abeles ■ That’s Linden’s Charles Snowden posed as the pointing hunting dog, left. He’s headed in the direction of coffee and doughnuts that have just arrived. Bruce Pate has beaten Snowden by a little. The two are on the job building a ramp for the Thomas Everett home in Queen City. Arriving with the donuts and coffee is neighbor and relative Rosemary Lewis, right. Snowden is known as Linden’s zany raconteur. That’s someone who is always smiling, playing a joke and having a good time. He probably doesn’t even want the coffee and donuts. He’s just pointing the way for the others.

Staff photo by Neil Abeles ■ In their celebration T-shirts and with smiles for completing this ramp and contributing to 100 miles of other ramps are, from left, Jim Finley, Bruce Pate, Charles Snowden, Pete Schroeder, David Culpepper, Martha Everett, Danny Boitnott, Brad Heath, Michael DeWitt, Phil Huffer, Brad Heath and Kenny Hamilton.

Staff photo by Neil Abeles ■ Want to know how ramps get built? Well, 10 men from the Cass County Chapter of the Texas Ramp Project arrive early, set up eagerly and quietly, and then get to work.

Staff photo by Neil Abeles ■ There’s one certainty with a ramp project — each movement gets plenty of inspection. Pictured from left are Brad Heath, Charles Snowden, Phil Huffer, Pete Schroeder and David Culpepper.