High school students at St. Anne Catholic High School have given back to aid a local disabled man.
About five years ago, Rob Piper was involved in a cycling accident which resulted in him being confined to a wheelchair.
Piper always loved cutting his grass, and was actually considering launching his own lawn cutting business prior to his accident.
Through a mutual acquaintance, Piper was connected with Mike Costello, who teaches manufacturing at St. Anne Catholic High School.
Costello purchased an electric lawnmower, and along with a group of his students, actually built an assistive device so Piper can connect his wheelchair to the lawnmower, allowing him to cut his lawn while remaining in his chair.
Students, staff and Piper came together on Wednesday at 1616 Buckingham Drive in Windsor to see Rob cut his lawn with the device.
Piper says he's absolutely overwhelmed, and excited about what this will mean for him.
"Felt really good, just got to get used the swing at the front end. I dunno, runs better than a John Deere."
Piper's wife, Stacey Piper, says it's nice to see Rob get his independence back.
She says they're both blown away by the students taking this on and running with it.
"I can't believe the things that they came up with. They heard the idea, and they were like full force, yeah let's go do it. We couldn't believe it when we heard that it was going to be a real lawnmower, it was going to have buttons, and it was going to be motorized where we didn't have to help him hook up or anything," she said.
Jake Polewski, a Grade 11 student at St. Anne, says it was great effort to be a part of.
"To be able to give Rob some independence back, something just for him to be able to do in life. It's just crazy that it all came together and it works. To be able to do that, and be able to help him out, it's just a great feeling," he said.
The project, known by the students as Project Marco, took about a year to complete.
Costello says it was called that in honour of his education assistant, Jennifer Shepherd's brother Marco, who was friends with Piper and had approached Shepherd.
Marco passed away before the project could be completed, so Costello says the work was also done in his memory.
"We started with just researching a little bit online of ideas, and then we sat down as a group of students and myself where we started to engineer a couple of designs. So students, along with myself, we all just kept hacking away at different ideas on paper until we came up with a great idea. And I guess you see the finished product."
Piper recently visited St. Anne to see the device for the first time and to give it a test drive, before using it on his own lawn on Wednesday.
- with files from AM800's Rob Hindi
Rob Piper taking his lawnmower for a spin on Wednesday