Easter Seals pool is the only therapeutic warm water pool up here on the NorthCoast- it is indoors and has a wheelchair ramp. The facility also provides art, cooking, and other such classes.
The facility will be closing on April 30th if the community doesn’t keep it open.
Vector Rehab Services, with the intent of taking the facility over, investing in some construction repairs and upgrades, and continuing to maintain the pool and other therapeutic and rehabilitative resources, needs more time to complete the proposal and buying process. Easter Seals San Francisco, however, wants to sell the property off immediately to the highest bidder, threatening the communities who use it- elderly, disabled, and injured. The facility was originally donated about 60 years ago to serve these communities, and has been a unique and critical component to their health and enjoyment. The warm water pool is one of the few places where people who use wheelchairs or have difficulties with movement, many who are landlocked, chairlocked, or bedridden, can comfortably relax, move more freely, and in some cases, enjoy rare times of extended mobility. The pool is often full because it is a vital resource for the quality of life and health of so many people.
Easter Seals, headquartered in San Francisco, is telling the local community to “butt out” and “mind your own business.” Easter Seals does not care or want to hear from the affected public.
All we need is for Easter Seals to wait long enough for Vector, which wants to add a pool to its public resources, to purchase the property.
Today (Wednesday) supporters and beneficiaries of the facility protested on Edgewood Road in front of the Easter Seals Eureka. Please see the Press Release from that event at one of these links: PDF: http://www.box.net/shared/ji0t8vapdr JPEG: http://www.box.net/shared/gb0b2isxo3
Tomorrow, Thursday April 29, 11:30am to 4pm there will be a protest in front of the Humboldt Courthouse in Eureka.
We just need time, so that Vector can get all the paperwork together to buy it and keep the pool open!
Easter Seals is not supposed to be about profit and the highest bidder; Easter Seals is supposed to work in the interest of elderly, injured, and disabled people. People travel from Trinidad, Fortuna, and all over the county to get healing, freedom, and community at the Easter Seals facility. It would be a horrible loss for all of us if Easter Seals pushes for developers to move in.
Please join the PROTEST tomorrow and/or
CONTACT Easter Seals Northern California by phone at (415) 382-7450 or
Email cking@noca.easterseals.com or
WRITE a Letter to the Editor to our local papers or to the Press Democrat in Santa Rosa.
Also, as suggested in a handout from the protest today: If you drive by the pool on Edgewood Road , and you see a real estate sign (or are aware of developers looking at the property), contact them and ask them to keep “hands off” this property. Give the “save the Pool” committee a chance to submit a proposal.
Show your support for this facility to remain in the service of the people who need it.
PEOPLE PROJECT 