Originally published 2021-12-27.
In the autumn of 2021, construction students at Westerly High School in Rhode Island built a small wooden bus shelter for Ryder Killam, a five-year-old who uses a wheelchair. Before it arrived, Ryder waited for his school bus at the end of his family's driveway with little more than an umbrella between him and the New England weather. The students finished the hut in about six weeks, and it was set up at the bottom of the driveway on 2 November 2021.
It is a small story, but it answers a question many families quietly face: what happens when the bus stop itself is the obstacle?
Why Ryder needed a shelter
Ryder was born with myelomeningocele, the form of spina bifida most often linked to serious complications. He has never been able to walk and has used a wheelchair since he was two. Each school morning one of his parents pushed him roughly 75 feet down to the road, where the bus picked him up.
For most children a bus stop is a minute of standing around. For a child in a wheelchair it is different. Ryder could not dash out of the house at the last moment when the bus appeared, so the family had to be in place early, and the wait could stretch to around 15 minutes. On a windy autumn day in coastal Rhode Island, rain comes in sideways, and a patio umbrella does very little. His father, Tim Killam, explained to Good News Network that the umbrella only helped on calm, rainy days; whenever the wind picked up, Ryder still ended up wet and cold.
Ryder had been attending an inclusive preschool programme at Dunn's Corner Elementary since June 2019 and started kindergarten in September 2021, so the daily wait was set to continue for years.
From a Facebook post to a class project
Tim's first idea was modest. He posted on Facebook asking whether anyone in his circle had an old bus hut sitting unused in a yard, since he had noticed them on properties around town and guessed some families with grown children might no longer need theirs.
Instead of a second-hand hut, the post produced a better suggestion. Someone connected with the local schools pointed him towards the construction technology programme at Westerly High School. The teacher there, Dan McKena, had been running the class for 27 years, and he agreed to take the project on.
Three of his classes worked on it together over several weeks. According to Good News Network, the students picked up some techniques by watching YouTube tutorials along the way, which is a refreshingly honest detail: this was a learning project, not a professional build. Home Depot donated roughly $300 worth of lumber, and the Killam family covered about $600 for the rest of the materials. A former student and Westerly graduate, Ryan Perrin, delivered the finished hut to the house.
What the students built
The finished shelter measures about 5 by 8 feet. That size was a sensible choice: it leaves room for Ryder's wheelchair plus one adult, whether a parent or one of the nurses who help care for him, to sit comfortably out of the wind.
The hut quickly became part of the family's routine. In Tim's words, quoted by Good News Network, "Ryder uses it every day before school and his nurses wait inside it every day" while he is away. It also took on a second life that any parent will recognise. Ryder sometimes goes down just to hang out in it, treating it as his own fort.
The Killams said the project had brought the community a little closer and reminded them how much goodwill there is in their town. As of the reports from late 2021, Ryder had not yet met the students who built it, and the family hoped he would.
What makes a bus stop work for a wheelchair user
The story is heartwarming, but it also points to practical details that are easy to overlook. A shelter is only useful if a wheelchair can actually get into it and turn around. Several features matter:
- A level, firm approach. Gravel, grass and mud are hard work for wheelchair wheels. A short paved or compacted path from the driveway makes the difference between usable and decorative.
- A wide, step-free entrance. Even a small lip at the doorway can stop a chair.
- Enough interior space. The person in the chair should fit, along with a caregiver, without anyone standing in the rain.
- Visibility. The driver needs to see the child, and the child needs to see the bus coming. An open front or a window helps both.
- Safe placement. The hut should sit on private land, away from the road edge, and in a spot the bus can stop beside safely.
Families planning something similar should talk to their school district's transportation office before building. In the United States, transport is one of the related services schools can provide to students with disabilities under federal special education law, so the district may already have rules about pick-up points, or may help.
Why projects like this matter for students
Career and technical education classes often build sheds, tiny houses or furniture to practise framing, measuring and finishing. Giving them a real client with a real need changes the exercise. The students had to think about who would use the structure, what the weather would do to it, and how a wheelchair moves, not just whether the roof was square.
There is also a civic lesson. A child who could easily have been invisible to most teenagers in town became the reason for weeks of careful work. That kind of experience tends to stay with young builders long after they forget the exact pitch of the roof they cut.
A note on spina bifida
Spina bifida happens when the spine and the membranes around the spinal cord do not close fully early in pregnancy. Its effects range from mild to severe; some people walk unaided, others use braces, and many with myelomeningocele use wheelchairs. Taking folic acid before and during early pregnancy lowers the risk of neural tube defects, including spina bifida, by roughly 70 percent. Anyone planning a pregnancy should talk to a doctor about folic acid.
Ryder's story is a reminder that accessibility is often about ordinary moments: a dry place to wait, a smooth path, a door wide enough. Sometimes a high-school workshop is all it takes to fix one.
Sources: Good News Network: Teens build bus stop shelter for 5-year-old wheelchair user (December 2021) (photos credited to SWNS); School Transportation News: Rhode Island students build bus stop shelter for boy in wheelchair (November 2021); Wikipedia: Spina bifida.
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