Cheerios puts wheelchair athlete on box

Posted by greg
March 23, 2009

The Modesto Bee reports that the folks at Cheerios have decided to put a wheelchair athlete on their box. Primarily sold at military bases and and canteens, the boxes show a different athlete. The athlete has been touring military bases and hospitals signing boxes of cereal for fans. This is the first time that a large scale cereal company has decided to display a disabled person on a box.

Click here to see the box art.

We finally are being seen as regular people that just cannot get up from a chair. For too many years the disabled have been looked at as broken. The broken people somehow need to be "repaired" by the able bodied that have no idea what the are doing. A disability does not define who a person is, just a circumstance that put them where the are now. It continues to be a constant process to treat the disabled as anyone else you meet. I have run into several people that treat me like I am two years old and talk to me when they walk up to me. It is very hard not to blast them and let them know that I am a college graduate that matriculated Alpha Chi – in the top 3% of all classes. My legs do not control my brain or what I am capable of doing. It is no fun being thrown out of a store because I have a service dog, but things are getting better. The ADA gives us tools to make companies ease entry to their building and allow service animals to be welcomed. Here is to one day rolling in my chair and the public seeing a person shopping rather than a strange occura ce with the small minded starring and gawking.

Roaring Mouse (advocacy), Sports

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