Milwaukee - Day Three

The last day in Milwaukee we had a busy day of friendship visits. We started off with breakfast at the Independence First offices. Oh and I should give thanks to Kathy of Independence First who planned the whole time we were there, which was awesome.

After breakfast we went to a Milwaukee summer school for kids with disabilities and did our Kids on the Block puppet show, which the kids really enjoyed. Then we got to play on the playground with the kids and that was a blast. The kids were so much fun and it was really cool because we got one of the girls to try to fireman's pole and monkey bars for the first time and she was super-excited.

Afterwards we got to play wheelchair ice hockey at one of the US Olympic training facilities in Milwaukee. Wheelchair hockey was a ton of fun. Gabi from the day before showed up and played as well. It was really hard but the trick was to keep moving because starting was tough because your wheels would spin, but then once moving it was easier to keep going. But there were a couple guys there who were ringers, but we still managed to tie them (although we had about two to three times as many players).

Later that evening we met with a group of adolescent girls from Independence First who were differently abled at a mall. We did a scavenger hunt with them to help them develop confidence and social skills. We also did accessibility surveys of three stores in the mall to determine how "friendly" they are to people with disabilities. Barnes & Noble was good, but lacked braille signage, whereas Starbucks wasn't very good - counters to0 high for a wheelchair, displays cluttered and hindered access in a wheelchair, and they didn't have any braille menus.

It was an awesome couple days in Milwaukee.