Youngstown couple who parented 20-plus foster kids now need help themselves

YOUNGSTOWN

A handicap/wheelchair-access ramp and porch for their home would be a life-changing addition for Linda and Gerald “Jerry” Riley.

“It would be 100 percent better,” said Jerry, who is confined to a wheelchair with Parkinson’s disease.

“Up until a year ago, he could get out of his chair, but he has been wheelchair-bound the last six months,” Linda said of her husband.

He is also pretty much confined to the living room of his home in the old Idora Park area because much of it, particularly the bathroom, is not wheelchair accessible.

They need the help of friends to get Jerry out of the house for any reason. A friend puts down two planks to get Jerry’s wheelchair down the steps from the stoop to a vehicle.

They need a wheelchair-access ramp, butcan’t afford one.

The couple said their yard and garden used to be their pride and joy — Jerry handled the garden; Linda planted and cared for the flowers.

“He said, ‘Anything fancy, you do,’” she said with a laugh. “Our property used to be so well-kept, people would take pictures.”

Now Jerry, 77, can’t get outside to work on the garden, and he won’t let Linda out of his sight.

It wasn’t always this way for the Rileys.

They helped other people.

They were foster parents to more than 200 children for more than 20 years, including Trisha Thomas, who has changed her surname to Riley, effective July 18, and who lives with the Rileys, and her brother, Christopher Carroll of Lancaster, Pa.

Read more about this generous couple and their needs in Wednesday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.