Three guys named Bill walk into an Eastside LaRosa’s. They order some hoagies and a round of beers. Over dinner they hatch a plan: Create one-of-a kind devices to help kids and adults with one-of-a-kind disabilities.
The three Bills decide to call their unique, nonprofit, volunteer venture May We Help.
Equal parts Santa Claus, Good Samaritan and Rube Goldberg, the three Bills – Bill Sand, Bill Wood and Bill Deimling, two engineers and an injection mold maker – take a pledge. Their gizmos and gadgets may be made by a guy named Bill, but the people on the receiving end will never, ever get a bill.
The work they’ve done for free over the last six years has helped two sisters without arms play the cello and a paraplegic man feed himself. Their inventions turned a woman who couldn’t turn a page into a bookworm. Their creations enabled a paralyzed roofer to play harmonica in a blues band and a wheelchair-bound boy to take a shower by himself.
Just this year, May We Help’s good deeds and four devices, including a scooter and a portable iPad stand, have given 9-year-old Ireland Reed the sense of independence every kid craves and deserves. They have helped her go from class to class in school, learn new words, go to the grocery store with her mom and dance while sitting on the green, specially made scooter she calls the Shamrock Express.
“This guy named Bill is an angel, a godsend. I can’t find the words to express what he has done for my little girl,” said Amy Reed. Standing in her Colerain Township living room, she looked appreciatively at Sand and lovingly at Ireland.
Ireland had just finished performing for the 65-year-old man she calls Bill. She did a dance routine on her scooter, spinning around and bowing at the end of the tune blasting from her iPad, “Put a Little Love in Your Heart,” a piece that could be May We Help’s theme song.
Ireland scooted across the floor to the computer that speaks for her. She was born with a rare condition called Miller syndrome. Affecting one in 1 million newborns, this genetic condition hampers development of the face and limbs. “Ireland was born without eyelids, missing fingers and toes and the tibia bones in her legs,” her mom said.
Turning on her computer, Ireland pecked at the keys to give her thoughts on Sand, who sat across the room.
“He’s nice,” Ireland’s stand-in voice said.
She paused. Then she started typing again and her computer said: “Bill makes me better.”
Sand waved his hands, as if to ward off the compliment. Then he brought his hands to his face to wipe away some tears.
“I just like to help people,” he said.
“He’s done this as long as I’ve known him, and we’ve known each other since high school,” added Karen Sand, Bill’s wife. She came from their Delhi Township home with her husband as he paid one of his periodic house calls to see Ireland.
“He’s always thinking about how he can fix something to help someone,” Karen Sand said. “He’ll be driving along, deep in thought, and then, suddenly, he’ll say out loud: ‘That’s how I’ll do it!’ ”
She always knows what he’s talking about: Another project for May We Help.
“I don’t know how those guys at May We Help got together,” Amy Reed added. “But we need more people like them.”
The three Bills met because of two torn rotator cuffs. Deimling and Wood tore up their shoulders and wound up going to the same physical therapist, Ben Sherman. Asked what he did for a living, Deimling told the therapist about making a device for a friend’s son paralyzed by a car wreck.
“His son drove his wheelchair by putting a device made of wood in his mouth,” recalled Deimling, 69, of Clermont County. “The wood got wet and swelled and fell apart every six weeks. The thing didn’t even cost a buck to make, but it cost $130 to buy. I made one for him out of aluminum. Fifteen years later, he’s still using it.”
Sherman told Deimling he had another patient “who does the same things you do. His name is Bill, too, Bill Wood.”
Deimling invited Wood to his shop. A customer of Deimling’s, Bill Sand, happened to be there working on another project. And that’s how three guys named Bill met.
“May We Help was Bill Wood’s inspiration,” Deimling said. Wood died in 2010. “We are maintaining the two main tenets he established: We don’t do home improvements. We build, for free, one-of-a-kind things that didn’t exist before.”
This little-known but greatly appreciated nonprofit has gradually raised its public profile since Wood’s death.
For years the three Bills shunned publicity. As the chief financial officer of Tire Discounters, Wood did not want anyone to think he was doing good deeds to get business for the family firm that was founded by his son, Chip Wood. The younger Wood donated the company’s former Columbia Township headquarters to May We Help to house the nonprofit’s offices and workshops.
Deimling “went along with Bill Wood’s wishes” for anonymity. “I grew up poor,” he said. “But I have been very lucky with my company. I don’t need any attention. Or praise. Just helping someone get something that’s not available anywhere else is enough for me.”
With Wood’s passing, May We Help’s workload increased. The two Bills decided they needed help. They put out a call for volunteers. A core group of 15 creative types, mostly engineers, responded.
May We Help also received another assist from Tire Discounters. During the Cincinnati Reds’ just-concluded 2012 season, whenever the home team scored its first run of the game, broadcaster Marty Brennaman told his millions of listeners: “With that run driven in, Tire Discounters will make a donation to maywehelp.org, engineers creating devices to help the disabled.”
The exposure paid off. The good deeds business is booming. May We Help has so many projects in the works, the two Bills hired their first two full-time employees: executive director Terry McManus and project director Chris Kubik.
Hoping to expand May We Help’s reach and share ideas, McManus and Kubik conducted a worldwide search for similar operations. They found like-minded nonprofits in Israel, Canada, Australia and South Carolina. But they were not exactly alike. They were either affiliated with a university, received government money, restricted their client list or charged for their services. That makes May We Help an independent, one-of-a-kind outfit doing one-of-a-kind work.
“We give people independence,” Deimling said. “Everything we do allows someone to accomplish something they could not do without what we did. And it lets them do things we take for granted.”
Things such as relax in the shower, read a book, walk down a hallway. Bill Sand came up with gizmos – a shelf for a plastic shower-proof wheelchair, an adjustable bookstand/clipboard, a walker that won’t automatically go in reverse – that enabled 9-year-old Mason Murphy of Mariemont, who has cerebral palsy, to do just that.
“Before Bill came along, Mason didn’t want to get in the shower. I had to help him,” said Mason’s mom, Page Murphy.
“Now, thanks to Bill’s device, I can’t get Mason out of the shower. Mason has trouble reading things when they are flat on a table. Bill made the adjustable stand. Now, Mason can do his homework with his books at just the right level. Mason had trouble stopping his walker from going backward. Bill fixed it. Now, Mason zooms right along the halls at school.”
“When I think about the difference May We Help has made in Mason’s life, and that people like Bill do this out of the goodness of their hearts,” she said, “I always get choked up.”
After leaving Mason’s house, Bill Sand drove in silence for several minutes. For once he was not thinking about how to solve a May We Help project. He was contemplating why he does what he does.
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