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Kristi Eisenbraun

She wears a crown, makes public appearances and competes in pageants...and she’s in a wheelchair.

For Kristi Eisenbraun, reigning Ms Wheelchair South Dakota, her disability has been far more of a blessing than a burden.

“People ask me all the time if you could change your life would you not have a disability,” she said. “No, I would always have the disability. My disability has given me all the opportunities that I’ve had. If I didn’t have a disability I wouldn’t have a dog or know as many people as I know. I know someone who knows someone in every department in the state. So if I’m having a problem I can get ahold of someone.”

These connections and her position as Ms. Wheelchair South Dakota help her make a difference not only for herself but everyone with disabilities in the state, another reason she is grateful.

“I have connections to Senator Rounds,” she said. “I went to him and said, do you know that our rest areas aren’t accessible? Within three days I had an email saying, ‘We want to help you make this a reality.’ If I didn’t have a disability I wouldn’t be able to help others who have a disability be more independent. So I would never change it. I wouldn’t be who I am without my disability. Don’t get me wrong, there are days that I’m very angry that I have it like when staff doesn’t show up and things like that. It gets frustrating because there are things that people often take for granted that I need on a daily basis like help getting dressed in the morning.”

Eisenbraun was born with Cerebral Palsy and is confined to a wheelchair most of the time. Though she has physical limitations, she still manages to live on her own with the assistance of a service dog, Huxley, and some help from Personal Care Attendants.

With help from parents, special educators and various programs, Eisenbraun has graduated from Southwestern Minnesota State University in May 2015 with degrees in social work and psychology.

Though Eisenbraun plans on a social work career she has chosen to take a hiatus in order to better advocate for the disabled population of the state during her reign as Ms. Wheelchair South Dakota.

“My motto this year (my reign is until September) is that it’s not that people don’t want to help, they don’t know how,” she said. “So it’s completely my job to educate people on how they can help people with disabilities.” Eisenbraun has a personal connection to the cause.

 

“I was in Pierre a couple of weeks ago and I was like, ‘You have handicap buttons on the gas pumps but I can’t reach them because there’s no room between the pump and my car so how am I supposed to independently ask for help? Not everyone has a cell phone with internet where they can Google the number for the gas station and ask if they can come out and pump the gas.’ Not all businesses are that good at wanting to come out and do it. A lot of times you have to wait for another consumer you can ask to fill your tank.”

Along with filling up gas, Eisenbraun has also noticed the lack of accessibility for businesses and rest stops throughout the state and so has made it one of her platforms to help businesses come up with economical ways to accommodate for those with disabilities.

Putting in a doorbell with a sign for example so someone in the store can come and open the door for a wheelchair-bound customer.

“Some places are reluctant to make them accessible because they don’t want to spend thousands and thousands of dollars even though anything a business does to make it more accessible is tax deductible,” she said. “So my whole goal is how can I find inexpensive ways for you to improve so I can go in there. If you spend $30 or $40 you’ll get that money back because I’m going to come in and spend money there where I wouldn’t have gone in and spent money if I couldn’t have gotten in.”

Going into the Ms Wheelchair pageant, Eisenbraun’s main platform dealt with service dogs.

“The reason I did that is because I live with one,” she said. “I know all the negative comments you get. I was just in WalMart last night and I was shopping with him and someone was like, ‘why do they bring service dogs into WalMart?’ Um, because he’s helping me. He gets things off the bottom shelf that I can’t reach and puts it on my lap. If I drop something he picks it up. He helps to make sure that I don’t always have to ask for help because he’s always right there to do it.”

Huxley also helps her around the house by opening doors, helping her if she falls down, getting things out of the refrigerator and even putting her clothes in and out of the washer and dryer.

According to Eisenbraun, though it is acceptable to ask what a service dog can do, it is not appropriate to ask a person to demonstrate these services. People should avoid petting or distracting service dogs in any way without the owner’s permission.

It is also a felony to harm a service animal in any way.

“There are many different issues but these are the issues that affect my life on a daily basis so I have the most background and knowledge on those topics,” Eisenbraun said. “When people feel the passion they’re more likely to help you change.”

If someone notices a person with a disability, Eisenbraun said it’s best to ask them if they need assistance rather than ignore them.

“There are a lot of people who don’t want you to ask if they need help because they want to do it themselves but then for other people it’s kind of nice if you ask to help,” she said. “I’ll be at WalMart and there will be things on the top shelf I can’t reach so I’ll ask someone who’s walking by to grab it for me.

Some people look straight at you so you know they heard you and they still walk right on by. I prefer that they ask because then I can say, ‘no thanks, I’ve got it but thanks for asking,’ but it’s kind of a play-by-play situation. It’s better to ask and be rejected than not ask.”

Eisenbraun was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy when she was nine months old and learned the importance of selfadvocacy at an early age.

“Pretty much cerebral palsy is when you have bleeding in the brain and I have very tight muscle spasticity,” she said.

“It’s difficult for me to walk and balance and do things like that.

Like I was the only person in a wheelchair in the entire school district and I got picked on a lot. In my school district I didn’t have a bathroom that was wheelchair accessible for me to use in elementary school until my last year there. They said things like, ‘We don’t have to do this, we don’t want to do this.’

We had to constantly have South Dakota Advocacy on the phone. We had to have a physical copy of the ADA at our house to take to the school and say, ‘Where in here does it say you don’t have to do this?’”

Eisenbraun learned to stand up for herself all the way through high school graduation.

“They knew about me since when I was in the birth to three category so they knew about me before I came to kindergarten,” she said. “They still wanted me to accept my diploma on the floor while everyone else was on stage. No, that was not going to happen. I did everything they did and I shouldn’t have to accept it down here while they’re up there. It was a simple fix. They went and rented a ramp from a hotel.”

Eisenbraun’s peers were also very negative in addition to the school district being unhelpful.

“I had to learn to have a big backbone and stand up for myself,” she said. “I learned that the school district wasn’t going to help. They were better when I was in high school because I had a different special ed teacher. She was very much into helping me become as independent as I could be.”

Programs like Vocational Rehabilitation, Catch the Wave and Youth Leadership Forum also helped Eisenbraun find her voice.

“After YLF I went home and I was talking to my special education teacher and told her how we were talking about how it’s important to run our own IEP meetings. She had been going to different special education conferences and she thought it would be a good idea for me to run my own IEP. She helped me put together an agenda and I put together a Powerpoint.”

From then on, Eisenbraun took charge of her meetings, making sure her voice was heard, listing her strengths and weaknesses and how she felt about herself.

“Then I listed my current goals then after each goal I would explain how I felt about that goal, whether I liked it or whether I wanted to try something new,” she said. “After I was done explaining how I felt then the rest of the team put their input in.

That way my voice was being heard.”

Eisenbraun emphasized that change is possible if you are willing to take charge.

“I want everyone to know that if you don’t like services you’re getting in high school you have the right to research other services and figure out if there’s something better for you,” she said. “It was my very first IEP meeting that I ran by myself with the help of my parents and special education teacher that I actually fired my physical therapist because they were not meeting my needs. This wasn’t something I did just by myself. I made sure I consulted other people in my life.”

Eisenbraun continued to work with Vocational Rehabilitation counselors to help her find success in her college education.

“I graduated in May from Southwestern Minnesota State,” she said. “I moved to Sioux Falls in August and got crowned in September. I was going to look for a job but then I realized how much was involved in this Ms Wheelchair stuff. I’m somewhere at least two to three times a week speaking whether it’s to Senator Rounds or mayors in towns, newspapers, Department of Human Services or whatever. It would be difficult to take that time off with a brand new job. So I decided to take this year with Ms Wheelchair my full time job. So my whole job this year is to advocate for people with disabilities that have a difficult time having their voices heard.”

Originally from Webster, Eisenbraun hopes to stay in South Dakota to build her career after her reign ends.

“When I first went away I wanted to stay in Minnesota but I’ve learned that even though Minnesota may be physically more accessible, we have a lot better services to help people with disabilities whether it’s working or finding more personal care attendants,” she said. “We actually have the lowest unemployment rate for people with disabilities in the nation. That’s a big thing.”

Eisenbraun hopes to earn a Master’s degree in social work and go on to work with people with developmental disabilities, having done an internship along those lines.

“I absolutely loved it because I could relate to those people on a different level than most case managers could,” she said.

“Even though I don’t have a developmental disability, I have a disability so I know what it’s like. I just started volunteering at LifeScape in Sioux Falls mentoring a couple of people who have disabilities at LifeScape because I’ve been in their shoes and I can help build their self-esteem.”

In regards to more short-term goals, Eisenbraun is currently raising money to compete in the Ms Wheelchair America pageant in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

“The entrance fee alone is $1900,” she said. “When I come out here to speak I don’t get paid anything. I get paid mileage but I don’t get paid anything on top of it.”

Eisenbraun hopes that other women in wheelchairs will apply to compete in the upcoming Ms Wheelchair South Dakota pageant in September.

“They just have to be over the age of 21,” she said. “We need at least two or three to hold the pageant. As long as we keep holding the pageants it’s a good opportunity to make our state better. They have to be a female in a wheelchair. They don’t have to be in a wheelchair 100 percent of the time. You just have to be in your wheelchair at all public appearances because you are Ms Wheelchair South Dakota.”

As for the rest of the population, Eisenbraun hopes they view the disabled population as what they are and act accordingly.

“A lot of people don’t know what to do when they see us,” she said. “They shouldn’t ignore us. We’re still people. I still have the same dreams and wants as every other person. I just happen to have a disability to go with it. Anything we can do whether it’s big or small to make our state more accessible in all kinds of ways is what I’m trying to do.”

Visit the Ms Wheelchair South Dakota 2016 Facebook page to follow Eisenbraun’s efforts on making South Dakota a better state. Also view the page for a link to her Gofundme page to contribute to her efforts.