'Amazing': CG&S Design-Build gives Del Valle family wheelchair ramp they needed for years

Ever since they moved into their Del Valle home four years ago, the Patina-Trujillo family had been asking for a wheelchair ramp. At first, it was for Betty Patina-Trujillo's brother, who had diabetes and kidney disease, to use with his scooter. Instead, he was stuck in the house. Then he died last year from complications.

Still mourning for her brother, Betty Patina-Trujillo also needed the ramp for her son Margarito, 14. He underwent a complicated back surgery to realign his spine last summer. A ramp would have made his recovery easier.

And she needed it for herself. At 48, Patina-Trujillo has multiple sclerosis. She is slowly losing her mobility.

The ramp was the No. 1 thing the family wanted when they were featured in the Statesman Season for Caring program last November. The program partners with local nonprofits to directly help families by telling their stories and asking the community to donate items on their wish lists, as well as monetary donations. Each year, the nonprofits are able to fulfill many of their featured family's wish list, as well as help hundreds of other families and individuals they serve with basic needs such as rent, utilities, medications, transportation and groceries.

Since 1999, Season for Caring has raised more than $20 million for local nonprofits and helped thousands of families through those nonprofits. The 26th Season for Caring program will launch Nov. 24.

Today, Patina-Trujillo and her family have an easy way to get into and out of the house and a place to gather as a family. CG&S Design-Build built a new covered porch and wheelchair-accessible ramp to the home. The remodeling company has completely transformed the entrance to the house in a fairly narrow space that other companies thought could not fit a wheelchair ramp.

CG&S Design-Build has been a longtime donor to the Season for Caring program. It built an accessible bathroom for a double amputee in 2018. It remodeled the condominium of a couple with developmental delays in 2017. In 2016, it built an accessible home for a veteran who uses a wheelchair.

"We always try to find the project where people need the things we know how to do, which is construction," said Dolores Davis, whose parents, Austinites Clarence and Stella Guerrero , founded CG&S Design-Build 67 years ago. "This is the thing we like to do."

The $55,000 project also included fixing many cabinets, adding lights to the kitchen and repairing a bathroom — many items that went on a long repair list that Patina-Trujillo knew the family couldn't afford.

Patina-Trujillo is in the process of filing for Social Security disability benefits. Her husband, Ruben, who is legally blind, works as shipping and receiving clerk for Austin Lighthouse-Travis Association for the Blind, a nonprofit helping the blind and visually impaired community.

"I'm excited that it finally happened," Patina-Trujillo said of the ramp. "It was so amazing to see little by little how it got built."

She and her family have been testing it out. "It's easy to hold onto and easy to use."

And of the porch, she said, "It's amazing. We can just sit out and eat and look at the rain."

Wonders & Worries, the nonprofit that nominated the Trujillo family, is in the process of buying Patina-Trujillo a new scooter to use as her mobility lessens. They are helping Patina-Trujillo's older son and daughter get their high school equivalency diplomas and will help keep Patina-Trujillo's truck running. They also were able to help Margarito and his younger sister Eliza with toys for Christmas.

"If it weren't for you all, we wouldn't be able to do a lot of stuff," Patina-Trujillo said of the Season for Caring program.

Wonders & Worries also will use Season for Caring funds to make sure the families they serve, who all have a parent with a difficult medical illness, will receive gift cards for the holidays as well as providing for basic needs.

About Season for Caring

The Statesman will launch its 26th Season for Caring on Nov. 24. To find out more about donating to the program or to apply as a nonprofit for the program , email Nicole Villalpando, nvillalpando@statesman.com .

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: 'Amazing': CG&S Design-Build gives Del Valle family wheelchair ramp they needed for years