Emily Gets her Bike July 8

HANNAH GETS HER BIKE
June 30, 2002

DAVID GRUBBS/Gazette Staff
Hannah Weatherd, a 9-year-old girl from Lima, Mont., gets a ride on her new tandem bicycle Saturday from Eric Miller, right. Miller is with the Rush-Miller Foundation of Colorado, a nonprofit group dedicated to helping children with blindness and visual impairment expand their vision of the world by providing them with tandem bikes.

June 30, 2002

Sight-impaired children get tandem bicycles from foundation

BY BECKY SHAY
Of The Gazette Staff

Hannah Weatherd has ridden a bicycle before, but never quite the way she will now.

Hannah, 9, received a new tandem bicycle Saturday in Billings from the Rush-Miller Foundation, a Colorado-based nonprofit organization that helps sight-impaired kids get their first bike.

Hannah took possession of the bike and pedaled through her a few spins Saturday morning at the American Medical Response office on Fourth Avenue North.

Hannah's parents, Brad and Jill, watched as their daughter took her first tandem ride with foundation co-founder Eric Miller while her brother, Levi, 7, videotaped the event. Hannah cracked a tiny smile as her family and the AMR staff applauded.

"It felt kind of fast," Hannah said later.

Hannah was born with cataracts on both eyes. Later she had a retinal detachment, which took away her vision. She has slight vision in her right eye - enough to see colors, but not enough to depend on, Brad Weatherd said.

Hannah has a regular bike, but it's difficult for her to ride far so the family can't bike together around their hometown of Lima. She immediately took to the blue Burley Bamba tandem and the matching blue helmet. With a short lesson from Miller she was climbing on and off the bike with ease and quickly mastered how to tuck her feet into the stirrups on the pedals.

Although Brad Weatherd's ride with Hannah was his first on a tandem bike, he said it was easy to get used to riding with her. And, he added, it's a really nice bike.

"I had a picture of an older 'bicycle built for two,' " he said. "This is high-quality."

How to help

The Rush-Miller Foundation provides tandem bicycles for visually impaired children.
To be eligible, kids must be ages 5 to 17 and asking for their first recreational bicycle. An opthamologist's report is required. Recipients must agree to always wear a helmet when they ride and to help raise money so other kids can receive bikes.
To learn more about the Rush-Miller Foundation, including how to make donations, sign onto its Web site at www.rushmillerfoundation.org

The Rush-Miller Foundation hopes not only are the bicycles excellent, but that visually impaired kid and families have new, quality experiences.

The Miller family started the foundation after Miller's son, Garrett, was diagnosed at age 5 with a malignant brain tumor. Garrett was blind, mute and paralyzed on a ventilator for two weeks, Miller said. When he came home, Garrett's parents watched their outgoing little boy withdraw and refuse to go outside. Then, with help of family, friends and corporate donations, Garrett received a tandem bicycle.

Miller gets emotional talking about the change in Garrett after he starting tandem biking. " ... Then this bike ... You have your son back. How do you put a price on that?"

The foundation was born after Miller "had a vision" one day while driving to the hospital to visit Garrett.

"I'm not a kook or anything," he said and laughed. "But I had a vision of thousands of (blind) kids across the country riding bikes."

The Rush-Miller Foundation was incorporated in March 2001 - in the middle of 64 weeks of chemotherapy for Garrett. That July the foundation gave away the first bicycle. It has now given bikes to kids in about 15 states and one in Canada.

Whenever possible AMR helps with local donations and provides Miller, a paramedic with the company in Colorado, time to accomplish the foundation's goals, said Allen Bergemann, AMR's director of operations in Billings.

"It's really exciting for us," Bergemann said. "We're a national organization, and Eric is doing this all over the country so it's a great fit."

Miller called the program's aims "very simple but very profound." Bikes let kids roam and explore. Bikes let kids dream and take magical trips.

"You never forget your first bike," he said. "It's freedom and it is profound. It's not just a bike; it's not just a hunk of metal."

When kids accept bikes from the Rush-Miller Foundation, they also take on responsibilities. They have to promise to never ride without a helmet and also to help raise money for other kids' bikes. The helmet is a safety issue. The fund-raising is an empowerment issue.

With an 80 percent unemployment rate in the blind population, Miller said, it's easy for the visually impaired to foster entitlement. The foundation encourages self esteem.

"We foster the idea that regardless of your circumstances, you can help someone else," he said. "Blind people don't ride bikes. But if that child thinks 'if I can ride a bike, what else can I do?' What if that transforms her 20 years from now? What if, because of that bike, Hannah Weatherd gets a gold medal at the Paralympics? When you dive below the surface, it's more than a bike."

"Life is very short and very precious and we don't have time to be jerks to each other," Miller continued. "We're teaching our kids we have an obligation to help people. This is our family's legacy, hopefully for generations."

Becky Shay can be reached at 657-1231 or at bshay@billingsgazette.com