Kids & Family

Plymouth Kiwanis Build Ramp for Housebound 78-Year-Old Woman

Ruth Bicknelll is able to leave her Plymouth Township home after months of being confined indoors.

A Plymouth Township woman is finally able to move about freely after being confined to her home since August, thanks to the help of the Kiwanis Club of Plymouth. 

Ruth Bicknell, 78, walks with a walker. She lives with her daughter in Plymouth Hills Mobile Home Park and lately she hasn't been able to take the first big step from the doorway onto the landing of the front steps. 

Bicknell, a member of the Salvation Army of Plymouth congregation has been missing church as well as other every day activities most people take for granted, like grocery shopping. 

When Keith Bailey, Major of the Salvation Army Plymouth Corps, went to Jim Vermeulen, who sits on the Salvation Army Advisory Board and also the Kiwanis Community Service Committee, with the problem, he knew they had to help. 

Together with Stewart Schauder, also on the Community Service Committee, they put a plan into action and began building the ramp the first week of October. They completed it in about two weeks. 

"It felt good - like they actually cared about me getting here and there," Bicknell said. "And I didn't really know any of them."

Now that the ramp is in place, Bicknell has been to church and out shopping. She and her family even went out to dinner at Red Lobster the night the ramp was completed to celebrate.

The Kiwanis Club of Plymouth donated $1,000 to buy the wood and various club members constructed the ramp themselves. The money was funded through profit from the Kiwanis Popcorn Wagon sales.

Vermeulen received bids on lumber from a number of places, but obtained the supplies from Mans Lumber in Canton, who not only had the lowest bid, but also waived its delivery charge for the service project. 

"We like to help out people," Schauder said. "Primarily, our funds go towards children, those kinds of things. But we do service projects for people in need. We We felt really good about that - that we could help her." 

Kiwanis members that worked to build the ramp included Vermeulen and Schauder as well as Richard Lake, Richard Karpinski and Joe Maloney. Ross Meyers, a member of the Salvation Army Advisory Board, also volunteered his time. 

They also received invaluable help from John Johnson, a former Kiwanis member and contractor who supervised the building.

"The American Disabilities Act required the slope be 1-inch per foot," Vermeulen said. "Which meant we had about 40-inches of a drop from her thresh hold to the ground. We were going to have around 47-feet for a ramp. And we couldn't go straight out from the house to the road because there wasn't enough room. So we had to go away from the road, put in a second landing and then come back to the road so we're not in their parking spaces that they have."

This was the Kiwanis Club's first foray into ramp building, although the organization has been involved in other construction projects including building two of the shelters at Plymouth Township Park as well as the barn next to the Miracle League of Plymouth field to house the popcorn wagon. 

The Kiwanis Club of Plymouth meets the first and third Tuesdays of the month at the Red Olive on Ann Arbor Road at 6:30 p.m. For more information on the club, visit www.plymouthkiwanis.com.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here