During the week of November 4th through the 8th, the Wheelchair Foundation funded the annual Abilities Awareness week at Amador. The three ambassadors, Rachel Klien, Casey Chang, and Rachel Zhang, worked with Mrs. Bawse to ensure the event ran smoothly. 

“My second year running this event was interesting because I was able to run it smoother. We especially tried to extend it to freshman and sophomores more than we did in previous years,” said Rachel Zhang (‘21). 

A few years ago Nicole Zhang, class of 2018 Amdor graduate, originally brought the program to Amador and now her sister Rachel has taken over the organization of this event. 

This year wheelchair ambassadors set up wheelchairs for the P.E. classes to use and designated people to send out donation canisters to every classroom. 

“I got involved because my sister was a wheelchair ambassador before I was and I heard a lot about it through her and helped her freshman year,” said Zhang (‘21).
The ambassador also paired up with Key Club, a service event club at Amador, and was able to involve significantly more people. 

“This year we also paired up with Key Club Because Casey and I are officers and it was a natural joining. Everyone was helpful and we couldn’t have done it without the twenty people who sacrificed their ACCESS to help,” said Zhang (‘21). 

On Wednesday and Thursday, twenty students volunteered to ride in wheelchairs for the day and their perspectives on disabilities were definitely changed. 

“My biggest adversity was people surrounding me not moving out of the way and I had no way of cutting through them,” said Ben Hensen (‘21). 

Overall the week was a success and both the ambassadors and volunteers helped bring awareness about people with disabilities and gave the students a look into the challenges that people with disabilities face in their everyday lives.