Name: Tulane University's innovative wheelchair program secures additional funding
Uploaded: 2026-03-01T10:40:00.000Z
Duration: 4 min 35 s
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Our lead national correspondent David Begno has brought us an amazing update.

Past simple

A few months ago he introduced us to an architect in New Orleans and a group of two Lane University students who found a way to make these life changing wheelchairs for kids who really need them.

Well, since David first shared their story, viewers like you jumped in to help.

But first, here's a reminder of how we got here.

This is a story about a small chair, but it's got a big, big impact.

The kind of chair that gives mobility to children with disabilities.

He's a four year old boy from Covington, Louisiana.

It's a condition that affects his muscles and he has a developmental delay.

When they offered you this wheelchair, was he mobile at all at that time?

Elizabeth and Brian Fabregas are Jackson's parents.

They say after eight months in that chair, Jackson has been able to sit up on his own and now he's moving around independently.

Yep, that's what made me happy because it's like he's included with everything.

The parents say that the toy like chair has been wonderful because it created a playful experience with Jackson's older brother Brody, and

has been the bridge from not walking to now using a walker.

Now meet the man at the front of this creation.

He's an architect in New Orleans who heads up an organization called Make Good.

They focus on assistive technology, the kinds of devices people can't find in the commercial workplace or can't afford.

Platt came across the design for the chair on an Israeli website that lists open source information for developers like him.

We can go beyond what's commercially available.

But what he's created has turned out to be way more than no one Platt ever imagined.

When I first met him in New Orleans, I didn't quite expect the magnitude of outpouring after the story.

And that's where viewers like you come in.

Since our story aired, more than $40,000 in donations rolled in.

And of course, Platt knew immediately what he wanted to roll out because he had also heard from nearly 60 families who saw Jackson's joy in our report and wanted to see it on their kids faces.

Plus something even more priceless happened.

Volunteers who saw the story said they wanted to help build these life changing chairs.

And with his team at Tulane University, they've built all these chairs about 25 in just the last five months.

And just imagine one what little McKenna might be thinking.

Each of those chairs, they cost $200 to make.

We're actually working on bringing that price down to about $50.

And by this point in the update, you can't be surprised that Platt didn't stop there.

When an injury prevented Seth from playing guitar with his dad, Platt pulled a few strings and created this custom guitar pick.

And this innovation put the drums within reach.

For Cole, who has cerebral palsy and really wanted to play like his favorite band, the Foo Fighters.

The work we're doing is not only extremely important, it's very inspiring to people, and

it shows them that they actually have the power to change their environments, to provide more independence for themselves and to really affect change in their communities.

For relatively modest amount of work, we salute you, Noam Platt, and

the students, and we thank viewers like you.

We're talking about donations that were 5, 10, $15.

He said, david, Make Good is able to produce adaptive technology at an average 1/7 of what it would cost to make it on the commercial market.

And I can't imagine just knowing that you were the vessel to get the word out so that this organization can do more.