As the new school year begins for University of Colorado Boulder students, so do the parties and other social events.
But until recently, the areas Jake Levin could go during those events were limited. This school year though, he won’t have to worry about how he will get inside the Phi Gamma Delta house to play video games with his brothers or if he will have to miss a party at the house in the winter because it’s too cold to host it outside.
Thanks to a ramp donated by the Home Builders Foundation, Levin, who has muscular dystrophy and uses a wheelchair, was able to enter the house on Monday for the first time without any assistance from his brothers.
The new ramp was installed at the Phi Gamma Delta house in Boulder by a company the Home Builders Foundation hired, said Mark Rice, a former member of the fraternity at CU Boulder and a volunteer with the foundation.
Rice said he learned about the need for the ramp earlier this year when Phi Gamma Delta’s president, Mitchell Crist, reached out to past members of the fraternity to inquire about how the fraternity could build a ramp safely and legally.
Rice helped the students apply for assistance from the Home Builders Foundation, who accepted their request.
“I am really proud of these undergraduate students, and I can’t say enough about the Home Builders Foundation,” Rice said.
Crist said Levin attended one of Phi Gamma Delta’s rush events earlier this year but could not get inside the house because there was no wheelchair access.
“One of (Phi Gamma Delta’s) main values is friendship,” Crist said. “I don’t think you are committed to the value of friendship without giving that opportunity to everyone. It was necessary to get (Levin) in and make him a member. We realized if he was going to be a brother, we had to figure out a way to get him in.”
Levin, who will be a sophomore at CU Boulder this year, said he heard about Phi Gamma Delta through a friend prior to joining and wanted to make more friends on campus.
During parties earlier this year, Phi Gamma Delta members offered to carry Levin inside, but it was hard to leave his wheelchair outside during the cold winter months, he said. This year, that won’t be an issue.
“I look forward to seeing all of my friends again and enjoying all of the parties,” Levin said.
Grant Stevens, corresponding secretary for Phi Gamma Delta, said he is excited to kick off the school year on a positive note with the new ramp for Levin.
“We initiated Jake and then he couldn’t just go right inside our house easily,” Stevens said. “It was frustrating, but awesome that Mark was able to help out so much and really just made all of this happen.”
Until Levin joined the fraternity, Crist said he hadn’t recognized the accessibility gap at many off-campus houses in Boulder.
“He really opened our eyes to the issues of accessibility and how prevalent that is in Boulder due to the age of the structures,” Crist said. “I am astonished with our brotherhood that we were able to come together and make this a reality.”
Crist said he’s excited to spend time in the house this school year with all of the Phi Gamma Delta brothers — without any barriers.
“I would like to see Boulder address this a little bit more in the future to find a way to make (housing) more accessible, so we build a more inclusive place for people like Jake so we can give him the same opportunity everyone else has,” Crist said.
