LINDEN, NJ — In an act of kindness, the city, 101 Mobility of Central New Jersey and Walmart came together to help one of Linden’s own. On Wednesday, Feb. 9, 101 Mobility of Central NJ installed a handicap ramp at a city worker’s home, made possible by Walmart, which donated $10,000 for this project.
Linden Deputy Director and Supervisor of Building Services Jerry Bishop said he was entrusted by Linden Mayor Derek Armstead to initiate the installation of a ramp at the home of an employee who lives at 610 E. Henry St. in Linden.
“One of our employees, Bryan Bowser, who is our heating, venting and air conditioning technician, had medical complications. He’s a skilled tradesman, a good person and a valuable employee, and he had medical complications which led to the … amputation of a portion of his leg,” Bishop said on Friday, Feb. 11. “Naturally, that took him out of the work cycle. When Mayor Armstead and our council president, Michele Yamakaitis, learned of this, they said regardless of what we need to get done at work, we’ve got to do the best we can to take care of one of our own, as a Linden resident and a city employee. … We all knew that we couldn’t use city materials, city workforce or city funds to go ahead and relieve some of the burden of Mr. Bowser, so we now had to get creative. The mayor said to me, ‘I don’t care how you do it, just get it done.’ I agreed and said to him, “We’ll figure this out.’”
Bishop said construction of the ramp was made possible thanks to 101 Mobility of Central New Jersey, with the entire job costing $7,475. Walmart’s financial donation was made to Communities in Cooperation Inc., a nonprofit that operates in part out of the Linden Multipurpose Center.
“Firstly, I started thinking about going to Bryan’s colleagues, and, if need be, I could use my personal pickup truck and we can pick up supplies and guys will volunteer their time to construct a ramp, perhaps out of wood, and that was a slow process. … My next plan was perhaps to go to Home Depot and ask if they were willing to donate the supplies. In the course of that phase, I wanted to get a price quote from someone who specializes in mobility access. That led me to a company called 101 Mobility of Central New Jersey,” Bishop said.
The company is a franchise that provides mobility and safety equipment — such as stair lifts, wheelchair ramps and bath-related items — for both residential and commercial properties in New Jersey.
“I had never been in a situation such as this, where we had to perform a service like this,” continued Bishop. “It was a learning process for me, but time was of the essence. So I called 101 Mobility for a price quote, spoke with (franchise owner) Dominic Romano, and I was very honest in telling him that I didn’t have the money but promised him that I’ll get it. Within 24 hours, Dominic came out, estimated the job and gave me a price of $7,475 with an aluminum ramp, custom designed and installed by his company. That meant the city of Linden workforce didn’t need to volunteer in cold weather, and it alleviated the step of Home Depot needing to donate wood and materials. This just left me with the task of finding the money.”
Admitting he’d never done this, Bishop said he knew if he spoke to someone at Home Depot or the new Walmart Supercenter, he’d probably be told they needed corporate approval. With this in mind, Bishop said he called Walmart headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., and was put in touch with Jennifer Hoehn, a Walmart director of public affairs. Hoehn told him she’d see what she could do.
“She told me they couldn’t send the money to the city of Linden because we can’t spend city of Linden funds, so I had to give her a legitimate nonprofit organization that I currently have a relationship with,” he continued. “CIC is one of the nonprofit organizations we deal with, and it turned out to be a further blessing, because CIC already had a working relationship with Walmart. They’ve done business with them on behalf of other residents for the city of Linden that CIC helped. That shortened the process considerably, and, within 24 to 48 hours, CIC received a check for the full amount of what we needed, plus a little more, and here we are at this point. I’m happy this worked out.”
On Wednesday, Feb. 9, the 101 Mobility crew installed the ramp. The mayor was on-site to see this dream become a reality and, according to Bishop, who spoke with Bowser on Friday, Feb. 11, Bowser was more than a little appreciative.
“Our ramps are modular, which means that it’s not permanently attached to a home. The legs bear all the weight of both the platform and the ramps, so the nice thing about that being modular is, it gives us a lot of flexibility as far as installation goes, and we can put it into different ways and it makes it a lot faster, because it’s aluminum, so it bolts together,” Romano said on Friday, Feb. 11. “It gives you a lot of different configuration patterns that might not be as cost effective if you were going to build the ramp out of concrete or out of wood.”
The installation went very smoothly, said Romano, with his employees arriving between 10:30 and 11 a.m. and wrapping it up by 2 p.m. He said they did a couple of turning platforms and had the ramp end on the driveway, so when Bowser gets out of a vehicle, someone can easily push him up to his door. Romano said that, if the ramp had been made of a different material, it would have taken several days to build.
“That’s why we’re in this business, and it feels absolutely fantastic to do this,” Romano said. “Any time we can step in and … and have (someone like Bowser) be more capable of entering and exiting his home now, whenever he wants via that ramp, it’s a fantastic feeling. We do this for clients across the state, but we keep the elderly or the disabled in their homes without having them move by providing these tools, and it just makes it a lot easier for them to remain in their home safely.”
Photos Courtesy of Linden