Many students join student organizations during their time at college. There is an organization to satisfy almost every need, but these two Rudd Scholars found groups that would help them fulfill their goals: to help people.
“My main involvement is being president of 3D Printed Prosthetics, and this will be my second year as president of that org,” Senior Bryson Murphy said. “And that’s just been a very meaningful organization to me, and we work on a lot of assisted devices for people in the community.”
Murphy was encouraged to join the organization by fellow Rudd Scholar, Austin Rempel, during his freshman year. Murphy said he joined his first week of college and has been with the program ever since.
“I kind of fell in love with the idea of helping others,” Murphy said. “And also getting, to use my hands, use what I learned from my classes and apply it to something meaningful.”
Third year Brooke Keith joined the student organization, Go Baby Go, through guidance from professors.
“My professors’ kind of threw the idea out to us, and I just decided to join during my first year. And after that, I continued to stay involved every semester, to have the opportunity to continue to build. And it’s been really rewarding,” Keith said.
Go Baby Go is a group that combines multiple different groups of students such as physical therapists, healthcare workers and engineers, to come together to build the best car for the child they’re given.
Recently, despite being a part of different groups, Murphy and Keith found their respective orgs working together to help a child named Jason.
“He (Jason) was about two and a half, and he was born with cerebral palsy, and so that affects how your muscles function, and so that’s part of the reason why he had some difficulty walking and he was also born with only one full-length arm,” Keith said. “He, for two and a half years, has just lived with that, you know, and he’s very functional, but the prosthetic that they made him will definitely help his life. It’ll be a huge deal for him. He, besides some of his medical related issues, was a very happy kid, very joyful.”
Murphy said Jason’s family wanted them to start off with making him a prosthetic to help him learn how to use it at a young age.
“Super happy kid,” Murphy said. “He was willing to try out any prototype we had or anything, just laughing, the whole way.”
Between the two orgs, they made Jason a prosthetic arm and a car to help him move around fully. Keith said it was a memorable moment when they first gave Jason the car because using his communication device he found the words, “Car fast,” “I love” and “Thank you.”
“In healthcare, I feel like everybody joins to help people,” Keith said. “You go in to build the car in the hopes that the kid loves the car. But I feel like with Jason, it wasn’t just like hoping he loved the car, it was hoping he could move around better, and he ended up loving the car, but you could tell now that he could go wherever he wanted to go, and that was a huge limitation for him, kind of like the prosthetic. I mean, he can’t walk on his own. So now this car is kind of like his legs. So, I feel like that’s really cool.”
Along with the joy of helping people, Murphy said the community of 3D Printed Prosthetics has been important to him.
“Engineering classes are pretty tough, so a lot of times I would just be bogged down with classes, just working away on classes,” Murphy said. “But then I know I have these meetings to go to where I can be surrounded by a really good community, and we’re all working towards a common goal, towards helping others. And it’s just really refreshing to have something that we’re all passionate about, and that kind of cheers us all up and really helps take our minds off of all the stressful things going on.”
Keith and Murphy said they also found community with the Rudd foundation when they needed them most.
“I’m very grateful for the Rudd Scholarship, for not only helping me with my education, but also supporting me in taking that next step and applying for graduate programs and kind of moving towards that,” Keith said. “Because I can’t imagine my life in any other way, I know I’m where I’m supposed to be, and it really is because of them.”
After graduation this May, Keith plans to be a physical therapist in rural Kansas and Murphy plans to look for an industry job in biomedical or pursue a Master’s in prosthetics and orthotics.
