UMD News: March 5, 2001

Communication Associate: Public Relations | Lori Melton | lmelton@d.umn.edu | (218) 726-8830

March 5, 2001
Susan Beasy Latto, Director of Public Relations 726-8830
Pam Griffin, Coordinator, UMD Access Center 726-6101

Snow Sculpture to Promote Disability Awareness
UMD "Access For All" Group Builds Snow Replica of New FDR Statue

UMD Access For All (a student organization which promotes disability awareness on the UMD campus) will be building a snow sculpture replica of the new FDR (Franklin Delano Roosevelt) statue in Washington D.C.. Work will begin on Monday, March 5, at 1:00 p.m. The project is part of activities of Disability Awareness Week at UMD. The sculpture will be built in the front of Vermillion Hall on the UMD campus just off Oakland Avenue (across from Kirby Student Center, adjacent to the bus stop circle ).

UMD students have enlisted the assistance of well-known Duluth snow sculptor Harry Welty. Work on the sculpture will take place from 1-4 p.m. on Monday, March 5, and will begin again at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, March 6. Work will continue until the statue is completed.

The new statue in Washington D.C. is an addition to the FDR Memorial and shows the wartime president in a wheelchair. After contracting polio, Franklin Delano Roosevelt designed his own wheelchair and used it for more than two decades; but he was almost never photographed in it, because he feared Americans would see his disability as a sign of weakness. The new statue depicts Roosevelt covered with a cloak as he sits in a chair. Two small wheels are visible in the back of the chair. The new statue vividly illustrates that a disability doesn't get in the way of achieving greatness and leadership.

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