An East Bay nonprofit organization that provides attendant care, free transportation to seniors and people with disabilities as well as wheelchair repairs will soon mark 30 years in Berkeley – the birthplace of the independent living movement.
Easy Does It Emergency Services was founded in 1995 by Cecelia Weeks, who ran the operation out of her Berkeley home and relied on a few VW buses to get clients to and from where they needed to go.
But over the last three decades, the nonprofit has grown significantly.
So far this year, Easy Does It has answered nearly 12,000 calls from people who need a ride or an emergency caregiver. Caregiving assistance is provided around the clock and rides run between 8:30 a.m. and 11 p.m. The organization also provides a wheelchair rescue program for people who become stranded when their wheelchair malfunctions or breaks.
Now, the organization is requesting $15,000 through Share the Spirit to provide emergency electric wheelchair and scooter repairs for 150 adults and seniors in Albany, El Cerrito and Richmond who are currently not eligible for the organization’s services.
“They are wonderful, they are very community oriented, they care very much about the services they provide and the community they serve,’’ said Peni Hall, a client who has used a wheelchair for 40 years following a back injury. “They are very into knowing their clients and having personal connections and knowing what people need. They are the AAA for people in wheelchairs.”
Hall uses the free transportation service to go to medical appointments, the supermarket, to see friends and go to concerts, she said.
“Anything non-disabled people do, we try to do, and Easy Does It is a big part of that. It’s not just a convenience, it’s a necessity. We are very lucky we have it in Berkeley. It would be much harder without them,’’ said 76-year-old Hall.
Easy Does It has roots that trace back to a man named Edward Roberts, who in 1972 helped found Berkeley’s Center for Independent Living, the first independent living center in the country.
Roberts, who was paralyzed from the neck down after contracting polio when he was 14, spent much of his time in an iron lung — a therapeutic chamber used to force air in and out of the lungs.
In the early 1970s, Roberts successfully fought to make the University of California’s Berkeley campus accessible to himself and other students with disabilities. In the process, he started a disability rights movement that spread around the globe.
Easy Does It was a natural outgrowth of that independent living movement, said Bruce Curtis, the executive director of Easy Does It, who became a quadriplegic following a diving accident in Southern California at age 17 in 1967.
Important components of Easy Does It are their wheelchair repair and wheelchair rescue programs, center officials said. Wheelchair rescue offers “roadside assistance” for anyone whose wheelchair breaks down and leaves them stranded.
“They will come to the location and fix it on the spot and if they can’t fix it on the spot, they will take the device back to the shop and fix it,’’ said Trevor Jacobson, who heads up communications for Easy Does It.
Curtis said the nonprofit organization, which has scores of volunteers and several dozen employees, is unique in America.
It doesn’t exist anywhere else,’’ Curtis said.. “There is no one who is doing a blend of safety net services for disabled people and seniors with visible disabilities and who has those services 24/7.”
Hall said she’s used the wheelchair rescue service at least 15 times over the years and would be lost without it.
“If your wheelchair is how you get around, to have someone you can contact who will actually pick you up if you get stranded is amazing,’’ she said.
