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By HOLLY HAYES /
Mercury News
fiorella
Arambulo is a charming 12-year-old with an enormous smile and a
can-do attitude.
"You tell her to do something and she'll always try to do it better,''
says April Alberto, coordinator of the Wheels on Fire wheelchair
sports program, where "Fio'' is an enthusiastic participant in basketball
and other sports.
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Fio shoots a basketball into a specially-designed net during
a weekly Wheels on Fire Junior Wheelchair Sports Team practice.
(Susanna
Frohman / Mercury News)
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When she started the sixth grade this year at Santa Teresa Elementary,
Fio's new schedule called for her to change classrooms for each
subject. That's when her family realized they needed to upgrade
her old manual wheelchair to a power model.
Now Fio zips with ease around campus. But there's a problem when
the weekend comes around and it's time for basketball practice.
The power chair can't be used for sports so out comes the old, clunky
manual chair, which is too small and way too heavy for the kind
of speed Fio wants on the court.
Fio, who was born with cerebral palsy, would love to have a new
lightweight wheelchair that's built for an athlete. Two years ago,
Fio's teammate Marlene
Alatorre, now 19, was able to get just such a chair after her
story appeared in the Wish Book.
Now Fio hopes Wish Book readers will make her dream come true.
"She tells me, "I'm too slow in this chair,''' says her dad Raul,
who supports his family of five as a truck driver. He's proud of
his daughter's independent streak, and excited that she is pushing
herself to excel in sports.
A couple of years ago, she got a scholarship to attend a two-week
summer sports camp for wheelchair athletes at San Jose State. She
signed up as a day camper, but quickly asked if she could sleep
over like the other kids. "It was her first time staying away from
home,'' her father recalls. "And she just said to me, "OK, dad,
I'm going to give it a try.'''
"Sports camp was very, very fun,'' says Fio with a grin.
Lee Williamson, one of Fio's coaches, explains that having a sports
chair "is like getting a new bike as a kid. You're all over it.
You're so motivated to play.''
A chair built for sports has more maneuverability thanks to its
slanted, camber wheels. And it's safer. Wheelchair athletes get
a workout and a rear "wheelie bar'' keeps them from rolling over
backward in a collision.
"Fio's old manual chair doesn't move very well, especially for
basketball,'' says Alberto. "But she pushes on to stay in the game
even when she gets really tired from the effort that chair takes.''
Off court, Fio likes to play with her younger sister, 9-year-old
Angelina, and enjoys an occasional outing with brother Jamie, 18,
to Chuck E Cheese for pepperoni pizza. She loves animals and has
a cocker spaniel named Gipsy that her dad gave her as a surprise.
At school, her favorite subject is science.
This summer, she'd like to join other athletes at the Northern
California Junior Sports Camp. Scholarships are $500
per child per week. A new sports chair -- dark green, please
-- is $1,800.
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