SPRING LAKE, Mich. (WZZM) - After an ongoing struggle caring for a special needs child, a Spring Lake woman says her call for help was answered through a community project. This week, several organizations completed building a wheelchair-accessible ramp that leads to her front door.
Kristen Cook says the wooden ramp outside her house stands for more than a smooth ride.
"It is love. It is people caring about people and its kind of hard to find these days," says Cook.
The ramp was built in response to her daughters story. 4 year-old Taya Cook is blind and can't walk because of a birth defect and bacterial meningitis. During pregnancy, Cook says her husband was battling Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
"He made some poor choices in Iraq and he's sitting in a federal corrections institution," says Cook.
Cook pushes Taya in a $4,000 stroller, which serves the same purpose as a wheelchair. Cook says the problem is its several times as heavy as a normal stroller to carry up the steps.
However, a phone call to Habitat for Humanity started a chain reaction among several organizations including Veterans Realty, Home Depot, and a group of Church volunteers who built the ramp.
The Church group called SWAT, which specializes in building wheelchair-accessible ramps, was given $2,500 of material from Home Depot for free.
"All ramps have something that grabs at you. This one was the little girl," says Dan Mirek, a member of SWAT.
"Somebody paid it forward and I'm definitely going to pay it forward," says Cook.
Cook says her landlord also helped her get the permit to build the ramp, even though she's $1,400 behind in rent.