CELPIP Listening Part 4 Practice Test: Men's Shed Ramps

MAN: A woodworking class at the Portage la Prairie Men's Shed has spent the past two months building wheelchair ramps for residents who can't afford to hire a contractor. The program normally focuses on smaller projects like birdhouses and garden benches, but organizers say they shifted attention this spring after receiving several requests from families struggling with mobility issues at home. Instructor Isolde Ostergaard said the idea came together quickly once members realized how much material they already had on hand from donated lumber. She estimated that a typical contractor-built ramp in the area costs between two and four thousand dollars, while the group can usually complete one for under three hundred dollars in materials. So far the class has built five ramps, including one for a retired mail carrier who had been using a makeshift plank to get his wheelchair up the front steps. Sable Nazarian, one of the volunteers who helped design the ramps, said the hardest part wasn't the carpentry but figuring out the right slope for each house, since some yards slope more steeply than others. The group meets twice a week in a shed behind the community centre, and most of the volunteers are retirees who took up woodworking after leaving other trades. Ostergaard said the response from the community has been stronger than expected. "We thought we'd get maybe one or two requests a month," she said, "but we're already booked well into the fall."