Luke Anderson Is One Cool Dude (Deep Thoughts on Grief, Healing, and Accessibility)

It was my honour to welcome Luke Anderson to This Is Your Strange and Beautiful Life! Luke Anderson is a speaker, singer, dancer, harmonica player, accessibility advocate, and athlete of the body turned athlete of the spirit. He is relatively famous for co-founding the revolutionary StopGap Foundation, a registered charity that builds bright and beautiful ramps across Toronto and North America. StopGap’s mission is to “bring people together to take practical steps to make spaces more accessible.”

I think about this interview every day. Please enjoy!

Luke Anderson: “I’ve developed a way of life that recognizes the possibilities of what I have now. And the way that I’ve chosen to recognize my physical situation right now is that, at the time of my injury... I was experiencing a piece of the pie of life. That was my periphery, that was my field of view, a slice of the pie of life. And because of the pie of life. And because of my injury and it helping me broaden my perspective, I’m now able to see a new slice of that pie of life. So, that kind of speaks to what I was saying... to see that moment, that injury I sustained on October 27, 2002 as a gift. It gifted me an opportunity to see life through a new lens.”

Links and Resources

Luke Anderson on Instagram: @lukewanders_on

The StopGap Foundation: stopgap.ca @stopgapfoundation

StopGap on HotDocs: Stop Gap Measure

StopGap, The Luke Anderson Story: Watch on YouTube

Luke's Harmonica Teacher Nico Tyson

Erica on Instagram: @erica.j.schmidt

Erica's website: ericajschmidt.com

Erica's Interview with Luke Anderson