Rob's Story

Rob has found a way to give back to his community in spite of battling lifelong challenges with cerebral palsy.

The 42-year-old has limited use of one arm and faces challenges with walking. Instead of going on disability, Rob pushes himself to lead an active life, bicycling to his job at Roosevelt Elementary School where he works with students with disabilities.

"I am very active. I bike everywhere," he said.

Rob receives housing assistance, but relies on his earned income for everything else and says, "I feel very fortunate that I am mainly self-supporting."

Rob works to increase understanding and tolerance among non-disabled students, while helping disabled youngsters improve academically. His experiences as one of the first disabled students mainstreamed into public schools help him help others, he said.

"I had a hard time growing up in school and that's the reason I'm working with students."

Rob is great at budgeting and buys food in bulk and breaks it in to smaller quantities to freeze. When Second Harvest's Mobile Food Bank visited Roosevelt recently, Rob was able to get a mix of fresh oranges, potatoes, almond milk, sweet potato French fries, bread and other items to help him through the month.

The Second Harvest food will come in handy, said Rob, adding, "My freezer now is particularly bare. This food will help the students' families and this will help me."