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October 21, 2009

What's wrong with this picture? How a respected local foundation might be sending a mixed message



The Blackhawk-based Wheelchair Foundation, founded in 2000 by real-estate developer Ken Behring, has an impressive, worthy goal: to deliver a wheelchair to every child, teen, and adult in the world who needs one. The foundation had thus far delivered more than 760,000 wheelchairs to people in more than 150 countries and geographical areas around the world.

But alas, someone snapped this shot of the front of the Wheelchair Foundation's headquarters in Blackhawk Plaza (Behring developed the gated community of Blackhawk) and submitted it to FailBlog.com. This website calls attention to amusing disconnects between the messages that individuals and organizations attempt to put out and how they actually come across to the general public.

The Wheelchair Foundation recently found itself in FailBlog.com's crosshairs, and I think you can guess why.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Amazing! Any decent architect would have caught this.

Anonymous said...

Must have been a repug tax deduction.

Anonymous said...

ok, well this one is kind of on the funny side, unless you are in a wheelchair of course. It does show how insensitive organizations can be.

Whenever there's a mismatch between perception and reality, it's good for society to know and point it out, don't you think?

Mike Dunn said...

What the image doesn't show is all of the entry way steps. Photos are cropped all the time to show one groups point of view. Is there a ramp on the side? If not here really is a disconnect.

Anonymous said...

I'm with Mike (and also a teacher of students with disabilities), give us the entire picture then we'll judge. Many of these buildings were built before there were laws and ramps were made/added afterwards. Perhaps they are getting the building at a large discount or something and it just "worked" for their organization. Soccer Mom, can you get us a complete picture or speak to someone there? I cannot imagine for one minute that this sort of organization would be this insensitve and you're doing them a real disservice by posting this if they do in fact have a ramp (and I bet they do.....)

Anonymous said...

Looking at the age of the building I suspect a ramp exists.

This does highlight how things can be skewed a cropped picture.

This reminds me of a similar one with a fitness club that has an escalator going to the entrance.

Anonymous said...

Hey SM,

Have you been down to the building to see for yourself if, in fact, there is no handicapped entrance? If not, you have not been a very responsible reporter on this story.

Rather than being so quick to make a judgement because of an outside source's information for a cheap laugh, you should have done some investigation on your own.

Anonymous said...

There are indeed ramps to the left side of the stairs. This business is located in Blackhawk Plaza and the entire shopping center is handicap accessible.

Anonymous said...

Thanks 1:42 pm for the real information.

Soccer Mom, how about a retraction from you? Please post it as prominently as you did the original post on this subject.

We don't want to lose faith in your reporting abilities.

Anonymous said...

Libel, anyone?