The Texas Ramp Project builds wheelchair ramps for low-income people with mobility issues at no cost to the recipient. The ramps are built exclusively by volunteers. The Texas Ramp Project was founded on the premise that every person in Texas should have safe access to their home and community regardless of their ability to pay for it. This has been the driving force of our organization since the first ramp was built in 1985.
And since that first ramp, volunteers across the state of Texas have provided more than 29,000 safe-access wheelchair ramps to low-income people with disabilities. These ramps would extend 149 miles if laid end-to-end. They have changed a lot of lives.
Medicare and Medicaid will buy a patient a wheelchair but will not pay for a ramp that allows them to use the chair outside their home. TRP closes this gap by allowing clients to come and go safely and independently for doctor’s appointments, dialysis treatments, physical therapy, rehabilitation, and other health-related care.
The ramps improve clients’ welfare and quality of life by giving them more freedom to come and go, whether for medical or socialization reasons to just to get outside on their own. The ramps alleviate fear of being trapped inside in a fire or other emergency. The ramps provide relief to caregivers, often elderly spouses, and allow clients to remain in their homes rather than enter a nursing facility, usually at taxpayer expense.
TRP’s success is built on our volunteer model. The use of all-volunteer build crews, combined with very low administrative costs, allows TRP to build ramps at a third the cost of a commercial ramp. An average ramp is built in about 4-5 hours. Volunteers have the satisfaction oof knowing "that I changed someone's life today in about four hours." Most volunteers return to build again.
