Calliope Lindau is an adorable four-year-old living in Montana who has a genetic condition called Williams Syndrome. Due to her condition, Lindau has limited mobility in her legs, as well as some other difficulties. Luckily, three students at the Billings Career Center in Billings decided to help!
Go Baby Go
Kai Pohlman, Ainsley Lennick, and Elijah McCoun are all a part of their school’s group Go Baby Go, which assisted the trio in designing and building a toy car for Lindau so she can get around independently. Pohlman explained, “Go Baby Go’s entire purpose is to reach out to the disabled people in the communities, especially kids, and try and include them in what a normal kid would be able to do through the car. Typically the kids that we deal with have a lot of mobility issues for these things. So the cars that we build are kind of in a way to compensate for that. If they can’t run as fast as a normal kid would be, then they can drive as fast as they can.”
How They Did It
Lennick explained how they were able to pull off making the beautiful creation. “We talked with all of the adults in her life and figured out what were the aspects that we needed to include in the car and what would be best for her, and then what were some of her interests and we could make the car look pretty for her. From there, we have the contact for the physical therapist and then we just brainstorm together [like] what are some things that would really benefit the candidate the best, and then just go from there.” The car can be used either with a pedal system (for Lindau’s physical therapy) or the child can simply use her hands so that she can get around easily.
The Big Moment
After three months of hard work and dedication, the students presented the little girl with her new car.
Lennick gushed, “As soon as she saw it, she ran to the car and threw her body on the hood and was just saying, ‘My princess car, I love my princess car.’ She really enjoyed driving it around. She had four siblings and they were all running up and down the hallway and it was just absolutely amazing to watch all five of them.”