HILL AFB, Utah -- A new special needs assistance grant offered by the Air Force Aid Society has helped a Hill Air Force Base family become more adventurous.
Master Sgt. Jared Graham, an operations and compliance superintendent with 75th Logistics Readiness Squadron, and his wife Laura, have two 16 year-old sons, Tyson and Landon (Dino), who are both blind and have cerebral palsy. Tyson also has hearing loss and Dino has epilepsy.
“These disabilities do not define them,” Graham said. “They have surpassed doctors’ expectations and live life to the fullest. They never complain about their daily challenges, they overcome them.”
Tyson is more of a homebody and a piano player, but loves to travel, while Dino loves to build things and spending time outdoors swimming and going on nature hikes. The Grahams had already been looking at all-terrain wheelchairs when they received a call from Hill’s Airman and Family Readiness Center informing them about the new special needs grant.
The $3,000 special needs grant is available to assist Exceptional Family Member Program families. The goal of the grant is to make important assistive devices, technology, and services more accessible.
“The grant is an amazing opportunity for our families to request funding for items TRICARE cannot cover,” said Alysse Seligman, EFMP-FS specialist. “We have already helped eight families receive funding. From shoes and insoles, to all-terrain vehicles, to communication devices, this grant helps improve Team Hill’s Exceptional Family Members lives in so many ways.”
Master Sgt. Graham said applying for the grant was easy and they got approved for the money in a couple days. It actually took longer to have the chairs manufactured than it did to get the money for the grant, he said.
The all-terrain wheelchairs were produced locally in Utah by Extreme Motus and are called the Emma X3. They fold in half and can easily fit in the back of a truck or minivan with the back bench down, so traveling with the chairs is feasible.
“Having these all-terrain wheelchairs has been a game changer,” Graham said. “We have been able to take the boys to places we had dreamed of taking them, such as hiking in the mountains and the trilobite fossil quarry in Delta. We plan to also take them to the ice castles in Midway this winter, a place that is not built for regular wheelchairs.”
Graham has been in the Air Force for 19 years and stationed at Hill for 16 of those years. He said the Air Force and the EFMP program has been a “huge blessing” through the years.
“We have been able to get the resources that we have needed for our boys throughout the years,” said Graham, “We are boldly going where no wheelchair has gone before.”
No federal endorsement of the products mentioned in this article are intended.