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A recipe for hope

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By MICHELLE BEARDEN

mbearden@tampatrib.com

Published: November 1, 2009

TAMPA - He wields the oversized knife like the old pro he is, slicing and dicing a bushel of pungent white onions with steady precision.

Chop, chop, chop, chop.

Richard Sabb loves his job preparing food in the bustling kitchen at the Grand Hyatt Tampa Bay. He's been at it for 10 years. He puts in an honest day's work, never calling in sick. Fellow employees call him punctual, dependable and cheerful.

"This is like a second home to me," he says, never losing a beat with the knife. Chop, chop, chop, chop. "The staff here, we're like family. I can't wait to come in."

Done. He carefully wipes the knife with a towel and moves on to another cutting station. Next up: a crate of plump red peppers. He dives into the new task with the same enthusiasm.

His co-workers like having Sabb around, but chef Lien De La Cruz wasn't so sure it would work out when she met him his first day on the job.

He was one of the first students hired by Hyatt after completing a two-week culinary training program developed by the hotel chain and Tampa-based Hands On Educational Services. Paralyzed from the waist down, Sabb rolled into the kitchen in his wheelchair, then opened up the sides and, voila! It transformed into a stand-up device.

"I'm thinking, 'It's too slippery in here. This is an accident waiting to happen.' I'm real stressed out, just looking at him," De La Cruz recalls. "But I was wrong. After a while, you just forget about that chair. I have to run after him to keep up with him."

Now she calls him Hot Wheels. He can't help but smile when she shouts it across the room.

"You see what I mean?" says Sabb, 62. "A boss with a sense of humor. You see now why I like coming here."

Of all the blessings Sabb says he's had in his life - so many people - he counts Hands On Educational Services near the top of the list.

He believes the state-funded program, which helps people with disabilities find jobs, gave him the wings to fly. Without it, he's not sure he would have found the confidence to return to work and become an independent, contributing member of society again.

"I was depressed. I would drink every day, sit in my electric chair and watch the cars go by," he says. "I didn't see a way out of it."

For 22 years, Sabb had worked as a cook at a frozen-food plant in Salisbury, Md. When the plant closed, he found a job in a kitchen at a nursing home. He loved working in the food industry.

Then, on Sept. 12, 1996, as he eased his 1982 Cougar into the parking lot of the nursing home, he felt a pain shoot through his back and stomach.

His right leg started tingling, then his left. And then he felt nothing at all. He couldn't move. He dropped the cup of coffee he had just bought at a convenience store and cried out. Someone called 911.

He never walked on his own again. A blood clot in his lower spine left the father of five paralyzed from the waist down.

"Doctors said just one in a quarter-million people get this," he says. "Guess that makes me pretty rare."

A year later, as he was still trying to adjust to his own plight, doctors found cancerous cysts in his wife's pancreas and lung. They gave her six months to live. Within three months, his spouse of 20 years was dead.

His legs useless and his beloved wife gone, Sabb wanted to give up. His once-strong Christian faith had been shaken to its core. "Why me, Lord?" he asked over and over.

A move to Florida

He felt he was failing his youngest child still at home, 13-year-old Latrice. In 1998, unable to endure the Maryland winters anymore and seeking some stability for his daughter, Sabb moved with her to Bradenton to be close to family. Latrice settled in with Sabb's oldest daughter and her husband, and he moved in with his sister.

For a year, he watched life pass by in a blurry haze clouded by the blues and booze. Then, in 1999, someone told him about Vocational Rehabilitation, a state agency that assists people with disabilities in finding work, housing and education. Sabb wanted back in. He wanted to cook again and earn a paycheck. Relying on others was not his style.
Sabb believes in guardian angels. He met his when he was introduced to counselor Linda Brown. She had never worked with a paraplegic before. But he was optimistic and eager to try. Early on, she got the impression that if she found the right tools and training, Sabb would be successful.

Brown found the $4,000 wheelchair that allows Sabb to stand, and the culinary training program offered by Hands On Educational Services and Hyatt. He completed the course with flying colors, passed the physical evaluation and was hired by Hyatt within months.

Although Sabb has moved to Tampa and Brown is in a different job, she says the two will "forever be joined at the hip." Sabb now drives her late husband's 2000 Lincoln Town car; Mobility Transport Systems installed hand controls for free. With a job and transportation, Sabb now has the independence he lost on that crisp September morning.

Nearly three years ago, he cheated death again. In January 2007, after a routine medical procedure, Sabb contracted a severe blood infection and had to undergo an intense antibiotic regime. After a few months, he stopped responding to treatment and his organs began shutting down. He was moved into a hospice facility in Sun City.

Told he had only a few weeks to live, his family started making funeral arrangements. Brown was among the supporters who kept vigil at his bedside and prayed for a miracle.

Slowly, he began to improve. Sabb was eventually moved into a rehabilitation facility, and by August, he was back at work.

"I just wanted to get well and get back," he says. "You know, I never gave up on God, and he didn't give up on me."

He is humbled by all the people who have found loopholes, made connections and supported him with their time and resources. Saying thank you doesn't seem like enough. Yet it's Brown who says she's the grateful one. She feels fortunate that Sabb let her be a part of his amazing journey.

"He is an inspiration to every person who meets him," says Brown, a district administrator for the Division of Blind Services. "He's managed to overcome every obstacle thrown his way, and he's done it with such a positive outlook.

"Because of Richard, I never look at a person and say, 'You can't do it.' He's taught me anything is possible."

Most graduates find work

Some 1,100 students have gone through the culinary program at Hyatt properties since John Ficca founded Hands On Educational Services in 1998.

A special education teacher with Hillsborough County Schools, Ficca developed the program because he saw so many young people with learning or physical disabilities drift after leaving school. He was going to run it just for the summer to supplement his income, but it was such a success, it became his full-time avocation.

The cost to the state to train the students, with food and lodging, is $3,500. Although the course does not come with the guarantee of a job, 55 percent of the graduates have found work.

For every $1 the state invests in the program, the federal government provides $4 if the case is declared successful. Reimbursement comes when a graduate finds a job and stays employed for at least three months.

The economy is hurting the statistics now, but Ficca is still encouraged. He's expanded the program to six Hyatt sites in Florida, one in Washington, D.C., and two in Texas. Plans are under way to develop courses in other states.

"When you help someone get a job, you not only change the person's life, you change the lives of everyone else associated with that person. It's exponential," Ficca says.

"The government isn't paying out all those benefits. The person is a contributing member of society and gets some self-esteem. It's a win-win situation all the way around."

Sabb's story is one of his favorites. He remembers when they met 10 years ago, when Sabb wheeled into his office and declared: "I'm not handicapped. I just can't walk." The two became fast friends.

Now Sabb is the program's emissary, speaking at the culinary graduation ceremonies and vocational rehabilitation conferences. At the Hyatt, managers know they can count on him, and co-workers feed off his energy.

No one knows better than daughter Latrice what her father has endured - and accomplished. She's 26 now, living in Plant City with two children of her own. But she will always be Daddy's little girl, and he will always be her hero.

"We call him the Rolling Stone. He just keeps going on and on and on, no matter what is put in his way," she says. "The Lord had a reason for putting him on this Earth, and that was to show others how to conquer and overcome and be an encourager. He is something else, my father."

Reporter Michelle Bearden can be reached at (813) 259-7613. See Sabb at work on Michelle Bearden's "Keeping the Faith" segment at 9 a.m. today on WFLA-TV. Keyword: Hands On, for more about the program. See Sabb at work on Michelle Bearden's "Keeping the F

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