BUBBLE
WRAPPING AMPUTEES

Topics: Caring; Character; Community Impact; Compassion; Creativity; Goals; Healing; Ministry; Outreach; Poverty; Purpose; Talents; Teens; Values

References: Proverbs 29:7; Matthew 5:16; 10:42; Mark 10:43–44; John 13:14; Galatians 2:10; Ephesians 6:7; James 2:14–17

Grayson Rosenberger’s mother lost both of her legs in a traffic accident. She and her husband founded Standing with Hope, a ministry that reaches out in music and prayer to amputees in Africa. Grayson, fifteen, wondered what he could do to help. So he entered the Sealed Air Corporation’s Bubble Wrap Competition for young inventors.

Grayson used bubble wrap packing material to develop a cost-effective cosmetic skin covering for prosthetic limbs. He used a heat gun to mold sheets of bubble wrap to the steel rod of a prosthetic limb, giving it musclelike tone and shape.

He was one of eight hundred students who entered the contest. He won the grand prize, which included a $10,000 savings bond and a trip to New York City. He hopes to travel to Ghana later this year to fit amputees with the low-cost limb.

—Associated Press, “Teen Uses Bubble Wrap to Help Amputees,” MSNBC.com (January 30, 2007)