APPRECIATING the NEED for HELP Twice-aided

NDAD client is

no stranger to

lending a hand In this issue

Escape to the Lake P.3

Dickinson man stays in motion with 2nd NDAD assist P.3

Insider

NDAD’S MISSION

Enhance the quality of lives of individuals facing health challenges.

SPRING EDITION 2013

Art ic le and Photos | Mike Brue

Karen

Schelinder

K aren Schelinder’s work history has followed a path of helping others since she served as a Lutheran church parish worker in the late 1960s.

When someone seeks help, her philosophy is simple.

“There’s a reason they need it,” said Schelinder, 65, who provides information-and-referral services for people with disabilities as a part-time worker at Options Interstate Resource Center for Independent Living in East Grand Forks, Minn.

Schelinder’s approach? She imagines herself or a loved one in the place of that person in need, “then you just start searching and researching and finding out what help you can get.” Continued on Page 2

NDAD Insider | Spring 2013 Page 2

Mike Brue - Editor & Communications Director

mbrue@ndad.org | (701) 795-6605

NDAD Insider is published four times a year. Winter and summer editions are

digital publications only.

About NDAD Insider

Continued from Page 1

“And you help people to advocate for that.”

She credits that attitude to her upbringing in a small Lutheran family of Dutch and German ancestry in the southwestern Minnesota town of Clara City. As a child, “I would always think, ‘If this is my grandma…’ or ‘If this is someone in my family, what would I do?’ ” said Schelinder, a University Lutheran Church member who continues to turn regularly to her faith.

Schelinder also speaks as someone who’s needed help at times. Her health has been challenged by kidney failure – she had a kidney trans-plant in 1988 – plus arthritis, osteoarthri-tis and gradual-onset scleroderma, a systemic, chronic autoimmune disease.

“I describe it as a disease that works inside and outside your body,” she said, sitting comfortably in her power wheelchair. Her fingers, noticeably bent sharply at the knuckles, haven’t been opened for several years. “You can have fingers like mine, where the muscles and ligaments will not straighten out. Your skin will be very, very tight. Mine, it was at the very be-ginning. You usually have a smaller mouth. My skin, it’s not nearly as tight as it was at the be-ginning.” Her muscles became weak, making it increasingly harder to walk independently.

She’s faced more than three decades of adjust-ments, frustrations and loss. Part of that time, her husband of 40 years, the Rev. Roger Schelinder, a Lutheran minister, battled cancer. He died in 2002, but not before the pair raised three children.

It even took a few years before the scleroderma was correctly diagnosed. “But it’s never stopped me from working, from doing what I want to do,” she said, chuckling softly, proud of that personal accomplishment.

A former Valley Memorial Homes volunteer

coordinator and housing manager, Schelinder went to work for Red River Valley Community Action after recovering from her kidney trans-plant. As emergency services director, she helped low-income families with housing, rent, electrici-ty and heating, plus ran an emergency shelter home for women. Very rewarding work, she said.

But scleroderma issues required hospitalization, ultimately preventing Schelinder from maintain-ing her Community Action job beyond 20 years. “So I recouped and recovered, and I thought, OK,

I’m going to retire. I can do that,” she recalled, smiling. “Then I found out I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t be home all the time. I needed to be out and about doing something again. It wasn’t a financial thing so much – not that finances can’t hurt. It was much more of a ‘I’m not that type of person’ thing.”

Schelinder got the job at Options, one of several Grand Cities non-profits for which she’s served as a board member or president. “I try to stay as active and as independent as I can,” she said.

Before she moved to East Grand Forks, NDAD helped twice, working with the North Dakota Division of Vocational Rehabilitation to pay for devices to assist vehicle accessibility in 2001 and again in 2009, when she bought a new van using an NDAD financial loan for assistive devices.

“I’ve always appreciated NDAD,” Schelinder said. “You know, they’re always listening and willing to do what they can do. They’ve gone the extra mile. And it’s not like, ‘We’re helping you and we’re done with you,’ that type of thing. They’re there afterwards. . . . It’s just not that they’re helping you because it’s their job. They’re helping you because they want to.”

Sounds like Schelinder herself.

Karen Schelinder: ‘Caring’ NDAD helping ‘because they want to’

Karen Schelinder approaches her accessible van.

Page 3 NDAD Insider | Spring 2013

With June comes Escape to the Lake.

Nelson Lake Recreation Area near Center, N.D., is the site of the 19th annual Escape on Sat., June 15. The lake is roughly 35 miles northwest of Bismarck. The free public event gives people with physical disabilities an opportunity to water ski. Registration is at 10 a.m., with lunch provided to registered participants and volunteers. The Aberdeen Aqua Addicts will give a water ski performance show starting about 1 p.m.

Look for coverage in the next NDAD Insider and at NDAD’s online sites.

Wheelin’ & Dealin’ advertise-ments, courtesy of NDAD, provide a forum for people to buy or sell new or used equipment.

Ads are listed online at NDAD.org.

To place, remove or extend an ad, please call (800) 532-NDAD.

Dickinson man with 2nd power chair: NDAD ‘has not disappointed’ him Donald Shock lives with both chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and heart disease.

The Dickinson man, 73, survived a major heart attack in 2004. He no longer gets enough oxygen naturally to routinely handle everyday tasks. He is on medication and travels with an oxygen tank.

“As I mentioned to the doctor, I’m just like a horse,” Shock said. “I don’t like to get knocked off my feet.”

He’s traveling fine with a new power wheelchair that he obtained in February through NDAD. Lighter, quicker and a bit more maneuverable, the power chair renewed the spring in Shock’s motorized “step.”

It’s the second time in nine years Shock qualified for NDAD assistance. After his heart attack, the charitable nonprofit got him his first power wheelchair and a van ramp – “a godsend,” he recalls. But after more than eight years and many miles of regular use, the power chair “just wore out,” he said.

“Without that power chair, there are a lot of people – including myself – who would not be able to get around and be independent. . . . It’s not easy to go from a person who was active to all of a sudden, in the snap of a finger, telling yourself, ‘Look, you can’t do it. Sit down,’ ” he said.

With his first power chair faltering, Shock contacted NDAD again in early January. NDAD’s approval for another new chair in February was a “big surprise,” he said, because he wasn’t expecting help a

second time.

NDAD is “a wonderful organization,” he said. “A lot of people say that they would help, but NDAD is about the only one that I could say so far that was truthful on that. . . .NDAD has not disappointed. I really commend them. I pray that they will keep up the good work….A lot of people out there need it.”

Read an extended version of this article on NDAD.org or on NDAD’s Areavoices blog, ndad.areavoices.com.

Get Dealin’

READ ABOUT IT at ndad.areavoices.com

Rosemarie’s story Rosemarie Shaver’s 50th year of life presented a turnabout in health that continues to disable her and threaten to end her life.

Visit NDAD’s Areavoices blog to read about this Minot woman, now 51, an ex-nurse who says she’s done crying about her change of fortunes, and learn why she calls NDAD a “godsend.” Don Shock near his van

in Dickinson. (Submitted photo)

GRAND FORKS

Main Office (701) 775-5577

(800) 532-NDAD

2660 S. Columbia Road Grand Forks, ND 58201

FARGO

(701) 281-8215 (888) 363-NDAD

21 University Drive N. Fargo, ND 58102

MINOT

(701) 838-8414 (888) 999-NDAD

P.O. Box 1826 1808 20th Ave. S.E. Minot, ND 58701

WILLISTON

(701) 774-0741 (877) 777-NDAD

P.O. Box 1503 309 Washington Ave. Williston, ND 58801

FOR MORE INFORMATION,

CONTACT AN NDAD OFFICE

NEAREST YOU:

It’s AMAZING what people can do when there’s help.

NDAD is a nonprofit, charitable organization founded by

concerned citizens to assist mentally and physically

disadvantaged people in North Dakota, many of whom are

not eligible for services from other agencies.

Disabling conditions often are very costly. NDAD was

founded on the belief that people with disabilities, when

given the opportunity, can live more satisfying, productive

lives — and NDAD has helped thousands do just that since

its start in 1975. This often requires the purchase of

specialized equipment, medical treatment, or other services.

NDAD provides financial assistance through funds generated

by both the organization and community projects. NDAD

also provides information and referral services to help people

receive assistance through other agencies, when possible.

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