ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, April 20, 1996 TAG: 9604220026
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER STAFF WRITER
THREE FRATERNITY MEMBERS bring a program to Roanoke schools that teaches kids to understand the physical and mental shortcomings of others.
Mark Riley says he might not walk or talk so well, but he's the Michael Jordan of wheelchair basketball.
"I can pop in the 3-pointers," he said.
Mark says he can throw a baseball but, unlike Jordan, never tried to make it as a professional baseball player.
He also can swim, ride a horse and lift weights - despite having cerebral palsy.
Mark's not really a wheelchair basketball player. He's a puppet. But he brought laughter and sadness to Monterey Elementary School students Friday as he talked about his "cruiser" wheelchair and helped teach them about what it might be like to have a disability.
He's part of the "Kids on the Block" puppet show, a national educational program that spreads a message of understanding and awareness about the needs and concerns of people with disabilities.
Two other puppets - Renaldo Rodriguez, a blind boy who can play baseball with a ball with a beeper, and Ellen Peterson, a mentally retarded girl who helps care for animals at a veterinarian's office - also explained their disabilities to the Monterey children.
As Renaldo and Ellen carried on a dialogue with the audience, the students seemed almost to forget at times that they were talking to puppets instead of people. They peppered Renaldo and Ellen with questions about blindness, retardation and other disabilities.
Crystal Driscoll, a third-grader, especially liked Mark.
"He was funny. I really liked the way he could move around in his wheelchair," Crystal said.
The children also participated in sensitivity exercises, such as playing with a ball with a beeper, to help them better understand and become sensitive to disabilities.
"When you are blind and you are playing with the beeper ball, you really have to listen to the sound of the noise," Crystal said.
In another exercise, the children had to put together a Mr. Potato Head while blindfolded.
D.J. Taylor, a third-grader, discovered that a blind person has to rely more on his fingers and sense of touch to help compensate for the lack of sight.
Kids on the Block is a traveling troupe of puppets, sponsored by the Pi Kappa Phi fraternity, that is on a 90-day road trip to 14 cities from Albany, N.Y., to Charlotte, N.C. Since January, the troupe has been averaging 12 shows a week.
The fraternity's spring 1996 tour will make presentations to more than 7,000 elementary students before it ends.
The puppet program is part of PUSH America, the fraternity's national outreach project that raises money and awareness on behalf of people with disabilities. The fraternity has raised more than $3 million for PUSH America since its founding in 1977.
Three members of Pi Kappa Phi chapters at three colleges were chosen from more than 145 chapters nationwide to bring the Kids on the Block puppets to life on this spring's tour.
They are Brad Fales, a senior at Florida Southern College; Seth Friedland, a junior at the State University of New York at Albany; and Mitch Plesha, a junior at Miami University in Ohio.
They took a semester off from their studies and underwent an intensive three weeks of training in puppetry before they began the tour. They have visited schools in Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and many smaller cities on the East Coast.
The national Pi Kappa Phi provides the students a van and $15 a day for food. The students are not paid, but they receive a $1,000 scholarship at the end of the tour. They are provided free rooms by hotels or motels in most of the cities along the route.
They are spending two weeks in Roanoke, presenting shows at 14 elementary schools. The Pi Kappa Phi chapter at Roanoke College is host of the troupe's visit here.
When they finish their shows in Roanoke on Friday, they will travel to Danville for a week before finishing their presentations in Charlotte on May 10.
"I've gained more knowledge and experience on the road than I could have gotten in 15 credit hours this semester," Friedland said. "It has been a valuable experience."
Friedland, who raised more than $1,000 for the PUSH America campaign at his school, said he volunteered for the tour because he has strong feelings about those with disabilities.
"I think the message is so important," he said. "The children are our future, and they need to understand what it's like to have a disability."
Plesha said he has enjoyed working with the students and seeing the cities along the route. The students have also met many Pi Kappa Phi members in cities where they have presented shows.
He said the students didn't have any experience or expertise with puppets before they were selected for the tour. They were trained by professionals in Charlotte at the fraternity's national headquarters.
By now, they know their puppets' lines and performances by heart, but they still enjoy the shows and the reactions of the children in each new audience.
"The children are the reason we do it," Friedland said, "to help them understand."
LENGTH: Long : 105 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: PAUL L. NEWBY/Staff. 1. Mitch Plesha (left) and Bradby CNBFales, members of different chapters of Pi Kappa Phi fraternity, put
on the "Kids on the Block" puppet show for students Friday at
Monterey Elementary School. 2. Monterey Elementary School pupil Josh
Simmons tries to assemble a Mr. Potato Head while blindfolded as a
demonstration of what it might be like to be blind. color.