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It was rainy and gray outside on Thursday but the Blain’s Farm & Fleet convention room in ����Vlog��ý was bright with the smiles and giggles of children gaining their independence and middle and high school students helping them do that as part of a program called GoBabyGo!, through the Illinois Spina Bifida Association.

Six children with mobility issues were given new sets of child-sized electric wheels Thursday morning, thanks to a project that has involved the middle schoolers, high schoolers and staff from Marshall Middle School, Parker High School and Arise Virtual Academy, engineers from SHINE Technologies, the GoBabyGo! program, Blain’s Farm & Fleet, and staff from Numotion, a wheelchair and mobility company in Madison.

McCullough and her family, from nearby Sharon, heard about GoBabyGo! through a friend.

With the car, “Dolly has two older sisters that she is going to be able to keep up with,” McCullough said. “They are going to be excited to drive her around, as well.”

McCullough said she is grateful for the opportunity to be a part of the program that she has not seen in other communities.

Matt Larsen, executive director at the Illinois Spina Bifida Association, said this is the first time GoBabyGo! cars have been presented cars in southern Wisconsin. He said the hope is to grow the program and continue to build partnerships with community organizations.

GoBabyGo! is an international program open to anyone, founded at the University of Delaware. Larsen noted that the Illinois Spina Bifida Association has delivered 120 cars since 2016. GoBabyGo! is always seeking partners to work with, he said.

Larsen said at an age when their brains are rapidly developing, an able-bodied child moves around and interacts with their surroundings, making connections and discoveries. A child who isn’t able to move around independently misses out on this part of learning.

“Mobility is a human right that we can introduce through GoBabyGo! to different community partners and school students to learn about engineering, innovate new devices that aren’t available in stores and help children with disabilities achieve key milestones,” Larsen said.

����Vlog��ý students who helped outfit the cars customized them to the children they were going to. One child, for instance, has a breathing tube and their vehicle was built to hold an oxygen machine.

Local partners

Watching children be put in their cars Thursday in ����Vlog��ý, Larsen said “after 120 times in never gets old.” Giggles erupted as cars got underway.

Cheryl Peterson, community and employee engagement manager at SHINE Technologies, said she was approached by Larsen about partnering and saw this as a great fit for the company.

Peterson noted that the medical isotopes SHINE Technologies is working on producing help identify and treat diseases like spina bifida; so the project just made sense.

She went on to work with Blain’s Farm & Fleet, that provided the cars and space for Thursday’s event.

The Illinois Spina Bifida Association provided a general framework of how to create the vehicles and the community organization and students design them.

Chris Maedke, the School District of ����Vlog��ý’s college, career, and technical education coordinator, said the schools and SHINE Technologies had an existing relationship, working together on other projects.

Maedke said Peterson has been working on this GoBabyGo! initiative since the summer and assembled a team of teachers willing to give up time to participate. Students enrolled in STEM courses have been working with SHINE engineers on the design and assembling of the cars since January.

Maedke said Thursday marked the culmination of a lot of work that provides real world experience to the students and allows them to see the impact of their efforts.

“This is a strong public service, they are learning to be problem solvers and work with people in the STEM field,” he said. “But it also gives the kids a chance to give back to the community.”

Freshmen Chase Chamberlain and Clyde Iep and sophomore Addison Friedrichs, from Parker High School, with the team name “Pinkalicious,” were the only girls in their intro to engineering class at Parker.

Two of them are eyeing careers in engineering or architecture and one said she took the class just because she was curious.

The girls said they tried to make their car as personal as possible with Parker school stickers, a purple “go” button and a sticker on the license plate that listed the name of the child recipient.

Chamberlain said she didn’t know how to solder or use some of the tools required before working on the car. She said her SHINE partner helped her learn how to use them.

On Tuesday, just days before the six cars were presented, the group was struggling with getting the electronics to work and came in for four hours during the school day to focus on that.

Chamberlain said she was excited to see the families and the kids trying out the cars they had worked so hard on.

“I’m most excited just to see the kids super happy in the car, just loving it because we put a lot of work into it. I’ve just been waiting to see the kids smile,” Chamberlain said.

Friedrichs said she was excited to see how the children would interact with their world with the car.

“I can’t wait for the car to give this child another opportunity that they wouldn’t normally have,” Friedrichs said.

The end of Thursday’s celebration was a parade with the child drivers cheered on by representatives of the organizations involved, teachers and students, and families.