By Shelby Stewart
Staff Writer
Brandon Twp.-The ride lasts about 30 seconds. But for a few students the memories of a cold January day on a township sledding hill will live on.
On Jan. 19, students from the Flint-based Elmer Knopf Learning Center took a field trip to the Brandon Township Community Park. The facility features an automatic lift to assist those that may need some help to the top. The students spent the day going up the lift and zipping down the hill in some ideal snow conditions.
“I think it was great,” said para-educator Laurie Cousineau. “They’re still talking about it.”

The Elmer A. Knopf Learning Center is a center-based school for students identified as moderately cognitively impaired and autistic . The center serves students from 21 districts in Genesee County.
With the help of the Ortonville Lion’s Club, who sponsored the event, all of the students were able to use the lift all morning and into the afternoon.
“We could not have gone without those volunteers,” said Cousineau.
The park, which is universally accessible, was able to accommodate students who had trouble walking, and one who was wheelchair user. A sledding hill lift station was installed at the park in November 2009. The conveyor belt was the final step in completing a Land and Water Conservation Fund grant the township received in 2008 for park development.
“This is what universally accessible means,” said Fred Waybrant, parks and recreation director . “This lift is always available for those who need it.”
Both Waybrant and Cousineau would hope to make the event an annual field trip, as would some members of the Lion’s club. All the volunteers were up and down the hill all day, helping students up the lift, sending them sailing down on their sleds, and helping them get re-situated down at the bottom of the hill.
Though some students went down only once or twice, many went right from the bottom of the hill, back to the lift, and right up to the top again. Parents, teachers and volunteers alike were smiling and laughing throughout the day.
Also present were members of the Village Pub, who provided lunch and hot chocolate for all of the sledders, volunteers and teachers.