The Gift of Hope and Technology

Date posted: December 4, 2015

A diminutive young lady with a pixie haircut rolled forward in her wheelchair to accept magical gifts – an iPod, head phones and a support that can hold the equipment on the arm of her wheelchair. Nikki does not talk, and the technology will open new worlds for her – allowing her to listen to music, make choices with the touch of a stylus and maybe learn to communicate. 

“She reminds me so much of our daughter,” said Gretchen Dinerman. She and her husband presented gifts of technology to 18 participants at Stepping Stones’ adult day program for people with disabilities during Thanksgiving week.

Gretchen and Robert Dinerman’s daughter, Margot, is the reason for the gifts that the Dinermans have been presenting to children and adults with disabilities for the past 21 years.  They call it the Margot Dinerman Gift of Hope and it is also a gift of memory, tributing Margot – who had cerebral palsy long before advances in technology changed the lives of people with disabilities. She died more than 40 years ago – a young teen who couldn’t walk or talk.

“Margot’s life could have been so different,” said Gretchen Dinerman. Through their technology gifts, the Dinermans are giving people like Margot the things Margot would have loved.

The Dinermans’ gifts included an array of iPods, special earphones, flexible brackets and supports, speakers and several styles of stylus that can be controlled by mouth or hand. Gift bags filled a table, next to a box of tissues. There were few dry eyes as the Dinermans greeted fellow families who understood the value of the technology gifts.

“There’s so much need,” Robert Dinerman said later. “I can never get over the fact that people are so short on things that most of us think of as a necessity.”

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