SAN ANTONIO – San Antonio is host to many amazing events and there is seemingly always something to do for families. But what about the thousands of people who have disabilities?
One local mother is helping to answer that question by stepping up to help her son and other families across the state of Texas.
“It was important for my boy to be able to be there and celebrate with his mama and his sisters as well,” Traci Lewand said.
Lewand is the founder of ChangingSA and the mother of a 10-year-old named Mason.
“He’s a paraplegic and he’s also non-verbal and blind,” Lewand said.
Lewand founded ChangingSA and brought a mobile changing unit to the Stock Show & Rodeo to help more families like hers all across the Alamo City.
“We are a city that loves to party and so does everyone else. This provides families of younger children the opportunity for both parents or caregivers to come out and for all of the siblings to be together cohesively” Lewand said.
Many families like Traci’s know the issue first hand when there isn’t a program like this in place.
“There are about 12,000 individuals in San Antonio that we know have some kind of ambulatory or developmental disability that requires diapering over the age of three,” Melanie Cawthon, co-founder and executive director disABILITYsa said.
And thanks to their partnership with disABILITYsa, a mobile changing unit is now a reality.
“It means we can come together and we often, you know, our time is stretched and it’s limited and our resources and we’re making fragmented core memories sometimes. So myself with our daughters or my husband with Mason only or Grandma with Mason only. And this this means that we can all be out together,” Lewand said.
Having the mobile changing unit at the rodeo is a great step in the right direction and the goal is to see it more at events across San Antonio and across Texas.
“We need it so everyone is included at all of the events and cultural festivals that we know and love,” Lewand said. “This is a huge step in the right direction for our community and being inclusive.”
You can learn more about mobile changing unit here by clicking here.