Tanglewood Moms Gives Back: Helping Restore Ability

Take a moment to consider the steps you take to get out of bed, make your coffee or breakfast, put in a load of laundry, and take a shower.

Many of us go through these mindless tasks before even fully opening our eyes each morning. Now imagine you do not have use of your lower body, you cannot walk more than 10 steps without supplemental oxygen, you cannot remember where your kitchen is, or your blood pressure plummets if you move too fast. These are very real everyday concerns for 1 in 5 people in North Texas.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention makes a startling claim: “Today, about 50 million Americans, or one in five people, are living with at least one disability, and most Americans will experience a disability some time during the course of their lives. Anyone can have a disability.” Factor in accelerated Baby Boomer aging, and the result is a sharp increase in the need for services to care for people – services that offer independence, freedom, and dignity. The definition of a disabling condition spans a broad range, from infants with a congenital disease, to toddlers diagnosed with autism, to teenagers now using a wheelchair after an accident, to parents who battle cancer, to grandparents diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

Photo courtesy of Helping Restore Ability

Helping Restore Ability exists to promote this independence and enrich the lives of people of all ages with any type of disabling condition. The agency was founded by a college student, Sam Provence, who was believed to be the last person diagnosed with polio in Tarrant County. Just to breathe, Sam depended on an iron lung at night and a Pneumatic belt that literally squeezed the air from his lungs during the day, but he willed his body to adapt. Outraged at the limitations he faced while attending University, Sam founded Helping Restore Ability to ensure that no other individual with a disability would have to face the challenges that he did. That same commitment, determination and empathy that drove Sam continues to guide the organization 41 years later.

Helping Restore Ability serves 1,000 people with a network of 2,200 personal care attendants offering over 2 million hours of care each year in the clients own home. Personal care attendants ensure that daily living activities such as bathing, dressing, cooking, cleaning, feeding and light housekeeping as well as more extensive care such as nursing care and therapies continue for the individual so that they are able to remain as independent as possible and in their home, maintaining their dignity. By having an attendant come to their home, individuals with long term disabling conditions are able to remain independent and thrive in their own community. Often, the alternative is a nursing home or a care facility, which is very costly and hard on the individual and family emotionally.

Photo courtesy of Helping Restore Ability

As the largest nonprofit in Texas to provide independent living services, we have done much work. Nonetheless, much work remains.

We need your help to continue to care for people with disabilities.

• Make a financial donation at https://hratexas.org/donate/ or https://www.tggce.org/organizations/helping-restore-ability
  • $50 Donation – Provides a full day of support for an adult with Alzheimer’s Disease
  • $100 Donation – Provides a weekend of respite care for an adult with Quadriplegia
  • $250 Donation – Provides care for a child with Spina Bifida for a full week
  • $500 Donation – Provides two weeks of care for a child with Cerebral Palsy
  • $1,000 Donation – Covers the entire enrollment costs of a disabled child or adult for lifetime services valued at over $650,000.
• Donate a new item to be auctioned at our annual spring gala, HuRrAh! Popular items include:
  • Experiences and services such as spa gift cards, hotel nights, rounds of golf, or theater tickets (expiration date should be on or after 9/1/2019)
  • Jewelry or purses
  • Wine to be included in the “wine pull”

To find out more about Helping Restore Ability visit us at www.hratexas.org

Many thanks to the Greatest Gift Catalog Ever and Christine Jones for facilitating Tanglewood Moms Gives Back!

Lauren Patrick is the Director of Development and Marketing at Helping Restore Ability. An Arlington native, Lauren received her Bachelors of Science in Psychology at Sweet Briar College, Masters of Arts in Student Development and Graduate Certificate in Animal Assisted Therapy Activities and Learning at the University of Denver. Since graduating Lauren has dedicated herself to work in the non-profit sector. Lauren now lives in Fort Worth with her husband, 1 year old daughter, and many fur-babies.