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Liberty Trike Application
Find Out if Liberty Trike is Right for Your Child!
Liberty Trike has helped many children with mobility challenges to get back outside riding again.
To see if your child is right for the Liberty Trike, click this link to learn about the features, benefits, and rider requirements.[Liberty Trike Theme Music]
[Jason Kraft] My name is Jason Kraft; this is Electric Bike Technologies. Behind me, we make the Liberty Trike and since 2019, is it, Kim, I'm almost Kim Heinrich. Kim is the mother of Allison, a child with SMA which is Spinal Muscular Atrophy.
[Kim Heinrich] It's a head-to-toe muscle disease but the majority of kids, who are still living with disease today are dealing with gross motor issues with their lower limbs, yes.
[Jason] Right so, it makes it hard to ride a bike and what we found was, luckily a couple of years ago when Kim and Allison came to visit in this shop right behind me. We found out that Liberty Trike was a pretty good fit for kids that had SMA, to allow them to be able to ride a bicycle in this case a little tricycle called the Liberty Trike. And you and Allison came in and from there, we decided we're going to, we're going to make some donations and here we are. I think you know two and a half, three years into this tell me about the journey, since we made this decision over the past two and a half years.
[Kim] You know typically families, when they realize, what they're dealing with, start to realize that things are not possible, and they may not be able to do things that they once thought they could as a family. Craig and I, my husband Craig and I were big bicyclists, when we met. We've done many statewide bike rides and we really thought that we would continue that as a family, with Allison. Without treatment, for her initially, we could see the toll that the disease was taking on her and we knew that what we thought was going to be a part of our future life and recreational activities that we planned was not going to happen. Since receiving the trike, we are camping, we are riding together. When we go camping, the boys of course are on their bikes, all over the campground and she is able to participate and use her trike as well. When she's on the trike, she's different kid she feels like you know everyone else. She's not the kid on the mobility scooter or the kid in the wheelchair.
[Jason] What are the qualifications, very quickly, what are the qualifications just kind of, off the top of your head of what a recipient needs to be able to do, to use Liberty Trike?
[Kim] To be on the Liberty Trike safely, the child must have some degree of trunk stability. They do need to have enough hand strength and I often, when I speak with families, and we discuss their child's unique strengths and weaknesses. We discussed the ability, to turn a doorknob, around doorknob and open it. That's just enough hand strength to use on the throttle on the Liberty Trike. For stability of the trunk, I often ask the families, if they'll share a video of the child transitioning from chair to chair or from chair to standing. Just so that I can get an idea, of how much core strength they have and then for lower extremities, to use the Liberty Trike. We know it has power. Power is in the throttle and sometimes pedaling is optional but the whole intention here, is to get these kids moving and to provide therapeutic exercise to the lower extremities.
[Jason] Now what about the parents because I mentioned that, so you expect a family to participate, when a child gets a new Liberty Trike, right? What are their responsibilities? What do you need to see out of that to qualify?
[Kim] My recommendation to parents is there is a definitely an orientation period to this Liberty Trike and its functionality. I often tell the parents to get on the trike themselves, so they can know what they're experiencing and get an idea of the coordination, that's needed between breaking and throttle. For a lot of these kids, they've never been on a bike alone, in the street in their lifetime. So, you need to, the families together need to know the rules of the road. That's a big one wearing, a helmet for safety. It's not a toy, it is a tricycle, yeah, a bicycle. This trike goes fast, you know they're going to be able to, they're going to need to be able, to be hands-on, supervising, either running alongside the trike or maybe this is the time for them to get a bike too and go riding together and to that end.
[Jason] I will say that every trike that goes out to a child, is also speed limited. So, we do dial that down.
[Kim] Limiting the speed, as is essential also because you know kids are kids, they want to go fast.
[Jason] Right
[Kim] I'm so thrilled to say too, you know, this is when you're donating a Liberty Trike, to a family like this, this is a lifetime, could be a lifetime bike for them. So, you know when they're older and, in their teens, and as young adults, they're going to want to be able to go a little faster.
[Jason] So, now that people are know their qualifications, to be able to apply, we're going to show them how that's done, right? So, I'm going to share my screen, we're going to go to LibertyTrike.com. That's where you're going to want to go and, on that homepage, you're going to see a menu at the top. It's going to say, "SHOP" and you're going to scroll down, it looks like three down, "KIDS CHARITABLE APPLICATION" and when you click on that, you're going to come to a page that has a form. On this form, we're going to ask some simple questions about your contact information and a little bit about your child that you're applying for and once you fill out all that information. You're going to put in the little capture here and seven plus four is eleven and all that, for security and you're going to hit submit. What's also going to happen is they're automatically going to get that PDF and actually, if anybody wants to look at that PDF first, you can click this link. It will open another tab, on your browser and it will give you that PDF of these qualifications. Tell you a lot more, about Liberty Trike, okay.
So, the Liberty Trike donation program is starting now in April of 2022. People should apply now if they want to be considered for a donated trike. This is going to last until you give away all 20, that we've committed and if people want to see more donations, come in a lot of families that are affected by certain diseases and mobility issues they are associated with organizations, charitable organizations like CURES, SMA.org but we want to encourage people to go out and solicit donations for Liberty Trike's for their child, for other children from some of these charitable organizations, right?
[Kim] Every disease generally has a nonprofit organization associated with them and oftentimes the focus may be on helping with accessibility, helping with Medicaid access to medications, treatment, and research but a lot of them have a focus on recreation as well and monies could be donated through and to that organization they could say, hey, we're really interested in a Liberty Trike. Do you have any funding available through this organization that could potentially help me to get one for my child? It would be wonderful if our, you know of our if you as the family of a of a child with a specific disease could start that conversation with your non-profit organization to see if funding could be directed toward the purchase of a Liberty Trike for your child.
Yeah, let me do a little talk on you, the donations people who would just want to donate and help a kid, get a txry some people donated an entire Liberty Trike, to an anonymous child, who was on the waitlist. Some people donated money and that money together collectively was able to purchase a trike for a kid on the wait list. Donations help, they collectively bring the money together to purchase a Liberty Trike for a deserving child, who's on our wait list.
[Jason] The next thing I want to do is, I want to show people, if they want to donate right now or at any time we're going to show them how to do that on the website and let me take you through that, so if you go to LibertyTrike.com, then you will be able to see at LibertyTrike.com, you're going to go to the shop menu at the top of the page and from there you're going to go "LIBERTY TRIKE FOR KIDS!" and it says Today, as in Today's Show and here we are already and we'll be updating these numbers as more donations come in and what you can do is you can see the Liberty Trike. You can donate any kind of amount of money over here just like that. Now, Kim as far as maintenance goes, that you've seen talk to me about that from a parent's perspective and what people need to expect?
[Kim] Well obviously from a parent's perspective, you know kids like to leave their bikes laying all over the yard, so obviously it has a battery and care of that battery is essential so there are wonderful videos on the website that explain how to care and maintain the Liberty Trike, how to take that battery and also how to keep the bike safe. I have a conversation with every family about where they're going to safely store the bike and that they understand how to safely care, store, maintain the battery, given the kind of extreme conditions that they may live in.
[Jason] Liberty Trike is not a medical device, and we need to make that, we need to say that right up front. Make people aware of that. We get that question a lot to be a medical device. You would have to you would be limited to selling only through medical device suppliers and that's you know you would get insurance to cover it. It would probably cost; four times as much let's face it but yes and most insurances will not cover Liberty Trike.
[Kim] However, the American Disabilities Act, ADA from you know has not strictly defined, wheeled mobility as being, DME. So, the beauty of your Liberty Trike is the design and the size of the Liberty Trike. So, a lot of our folks, who do have issues with mobility often use this Liberty Trike to get them where they need to go and sometimes you know it can fit through a doorway. The ADA allows a person to declare, what their wheeled mobility is. If you use the Liberty Trike for your mobility issues, related to your disability that's your choice and you cannot be denied. Denied all right.
[Jason] Kim Heinrich, I can't tell you, how grateful I am, that we found you and that you are, you know putting in the time and doing this work, to facilitate Liberty Trike's, getting to the right family. So, the work that you're doing on the qualification, really means a lot to us. I know it means a lot, to these families
[Kim] and Jason, I want to thank you because without you, we wouldn't have the program and without you, we wouldn't have a choice in what our children are riding and an option.
[Jason] And I just want to say, it's not me. It's everybody, you see back here, moving around during these videos. Everybody,
[Kim] Wonderful team!
[Jason] Electric Bike Technologies and all the parents and all these people who have donated and our entire group on Facebook. The Liberty Trike Rider Group. We're just grateful for it all and so thank you, very much, okay.
Kim, we got a lot of work to do, let's get to it!
[Kim] Sounds good, let's get to it!
[Jason] Let's go, thanks.