Mom Designs Shopping Cart for Seniors and Children With Special Needs

Drew Ann Long, a stay-at-home mother of three, has invented a shopping cart that she hopes will soon be available in every retail store.

Her inspiration was one of her own children: her wheelchair-dependent daughter Caroline. By the time Caroline was about 7, Drew could no longer fit her into the shopping carts that stores provided. As a result, shopping became very awkward for Drew.

It is a problem all parents of special-needs children share. Trying to maneuver around the store with both a wheelchair and a shopping cart is basically a two-person job — so what does one do when one parent is unavailable? What if it’s a single-parent household? In many cases, the special-needs child stays home and misses out on a fun shopping trip.

Instead of giving up, Drew brainstormed a way to solve her dilemma.

Via Parenting Special Needs:

Drew thought, “Certainly there must be a shopping cart for the special needs community”? But, there wasn’t. That’s when Drew got the idea to create a larger seat inside an average cart; big enough to hold her daughter, yet proportional enough to still maintain a cart filled with groceries.

The Mission: Drew’s mission is for Caroline’s Cart is to be in every retailer in the US and beyond! “Special needs children, and adults, are in every community and deserve the same equal opportunity”, she adds.

Caroline’s Cart was honored with the prestigious da Vinci Award for Transportation and Mobility in 2013.

Easter Seals is so enthusiastic about the cart that it will be the first product emblazoned with the organization’s iconic “lily logo”. Technibilt (member of the Wanzl Group), the world’s largest producer of grocery carts, will start production on a line of Caroline’s Carts on August 1, 2013. Caroline’s Cart is a state-of-the-art product that will provide families of special-needs children new freedom of mobility nationwide.

Many major outlets across the country are using Caroline’s Carts, including Food Lion, Giant, Kroger, Hy-Vee, Price Chopper, Target, and Walmart.

You can find a store that carries Caroline’s Carts by clicking on this link. If you shop at a store that doesn’t provide the carts, why not give them a call today and make a suggestion?