MOTORABILITY ISLAND—Saturday marked the grand opening of Motorability Island, a group of seven sims devoted to car culture where all proceeds go to United Spinal, a not for profit organization that helps those with spinal chord injuries. The group of sims, donated by Pontiac, used to be known as Motorati Island. Motorability Island kicked off its grand opening events, Fashions Cars and Avatars, with a fashion show, featuring the spring lines of designers Callie Cline and Kiana Dulce. The well attended fashion show was followed up by a day filled with SLascar racing events and a dance held at the island’s nightclub, Parkade, located on the Accessibility sim.

United Spinal Vice Chairman, TC Haggwood explains what the organization is about. “The United Spinal Association is an organization that works to provide opportunities and services for people with spinal cord injuries and disorders, we serve paralyzed veterans and all paralyzed Americans, we advocate on behalf of government policy and legislation that will allow our members to be productive citizens of society and fully integrate into their communities, which includes issues that affect people with disabilities from childhood through senior citizenship.” Patty Streeter (Jody Devere in real life) sits on the board of directors of United Spinal and served to establish the group’s presence in Second Life.

Streeter and became involved because her son has secondary progressive multiple sclerosis (MS) and a spinal chord injury due to a tragic car accident. Streeter said of SL, “Well, many persons in SL who have some form of disability find a “Second Life” here in SL,” adding, “We raised over $35,000 U.S. in online donations in 2007 here in SL and through AskPatty.com and promoting online donations.” Streeter provided the following statistics: “Approximately 250,000 individuals have a traumatic spinal cord injury while there are more than 400,000 persons with MS. There are about 200,000 post-polio survivors and at least 100,000 people who have battled syringomyelia. Some 70,000 Americans are living with spina bifida today and at any given time it is estimated that 30,000 individuals have ALS.”