Lending Dignity, Independence, and Hope
The ILCK’s Alyssa, Morgan, and Natalie
For more than 25 years, Laura Allen has led the Independent Living Centre Kingston (ILCK) with a clear vision: creating a community where people with disabilities have access to the tools they need to live with independence and dignity. One of the Centre’s most impactful programs is the Community Lending Library, launched in 2021 to respond to a critical gap in services when similar supports disappeared from the community.
In 2024, the program received essential operational funding from the Community Foundation for Kingston & Area, helping it expand its reach and continue meeting the growing demand. The Lending Library provides free access to assistive devices like wheelchairs, walkers, and bath benches to more than 1,700 people each year.
“It’s an incredibly life-changing program for people,” Allen explains. “We’ve had individuals come in with tears of frustration and leave with tears of joy.”
The program addresses not only the high cost of assistive devices, where even partial government funding requires families to cover 25% of sometimes thousands of dollars, but also the urgency of need. People who cannot wait months for approvals can leave the Centre the same day with equipment that restores safety, dignity, and independence.
Allen shares one memorable story of a young woman, just 25, living with a neurological disorder. She arrived at ILCK holding tightly to her partner’s arm, unable to walk on her own. Staff carefully fitted her with a walker. “She left crying with happiness,” Allen recalls. “She told us it was the first time in months she could walk independently. She said, ‘You’ve changed my life.’”
Another client, in urgent need of a wheelchair was overjoyed by the immediate relief and freedom it offered.
The Lending Library also benefits the environment: every sanitized and reused piece of equipment diverts valuable items from landfills, while allowing individuals to choose what best supports their independence.
Since 2021, ILCK’s Lending Library has proven to be more than a program. As Allen describes, “It is a program that truly changes lives.”