Adaptive Design Association is an organization that focuses on improving people's lives, one by one. When they hear about the everyday challenges someone young or old is facing, they figure out a solution and create it.
Alex Truesdell founded the organization and says when you change the life of one person, you change the lives of many.
"The unique thing about Adaptive Design is that it is really about the needs of one,” Truesdell says. “Many things like ramps have made it easier for everybody who has a suitcase or a stroller, not just the user of a wheelchair."
Truesdell realized how much could be done with simple adaptations when her aunt suffered a spinal cord injury that paralyzed both hands. Truesdell's uncle started creating simple solutions to big obstacles. She took that idea and ran with it. Her team has created thousands of items: an iPad holder for someone who could not hold it on their own; a chair for someone who otherwise could not sit up.
”Someone will get an idea, call us up, and they'll dream up, they'll envision something,” Truesdell says. “They will come to us or we will go to them, measure, sketch. The team has to come to some agreement and then we do a fitting, which is what is happening now. How could we support the iPad, for instance, or use the booster seat and then we amend as needed until we get it painted and delivered."
Adaptive Design creates all of its products from corrugated cardboard, often layered to hold a thousand pounds or more.
"You can cut it with tools, jigsaws and steak knives,” Truesdell says. “You can glue boxes together if you don't have triple wall which is what we buy from a distributor here."
It typically takes less than a month to custom-make a piece.
For more information go to adaptivedesign.org.