After decades of serving his community, a longtime Reston resident and advocate for people with disabilities is now in need of that same community’s help.
Family friends of former Reston Accessibility Committee (RAC) chair Kenneth Fredgren are seeking to raise $75,000 through GoFundMe so he can stay in an assisted living facility.
At 86, Fredgren is living with advanced post-polio syndrome and needs full-time care, according to Jennifer Gamboa, who organized the online fundraiser and describes Fredgren as “essentially” a grandparent to her children.
“His financial resources are nearly exhausted, and without support, he risks losing the safe and dignified housing he currently depends on while longer-term solutions are pursued,” Gamboa said. “Our appeal on his behalf is about responding, in the present, to a human need. It is my hope that we can rise above any conflict or human judgment, and just share a commitment to compassion and care for one another.”
Since launching in mid-December, the campaign has raised over $23,000 from 90 donations. The funds will help keep Fredgren in his current home until Gamboa and other supporters can “secure a long-term affordable housing solution that meets his medical and mobility needs,” the GoFundMe page says.
A resident of Reston since 2003, Fredgren co-founded the Arlington Center for Dance and nonprofit Center Dance Company with his longtime wife, Kathy, in the 1980s. After the couple retired in 2002, the two organizations merged and were renamed the BalletNova Center for Dance. The company’s theater in Bailey’s Crossroads is now named after the Fredgrens.
According to a Washington Post profile, Fredgren became a vocal advocate for people with disabilities when he moved to Reston, where he often encountered a lack of accessible ramps and parking lots for different businesses. Diagnosed with polio in 1959, he began using a cane in 1996 and later shifted to a mobile chair, he said in a 2010 interview.
Fredgren helped establish the RAC after befriending then-Reston Citizens Association (RCA) president Marion Stillman, who used a wheelchair and was grateful to have support in her efforts to make Reston more accessible, the Post reported in January 2010.
Dedicated to addressing barriers for people with physical disabilities, the RAC was first convened as an all-volunteer working group under the citizens association in early 2008. Its first project — a replacement of a curb ramp for the Sunrise Valley Center parking lot — was completed that June.
Since then, RAC has implemented and advocated for dozens of improvements, from restriping or reconfiguring parking lots to allow more ADA spaces to creating accessible pathways and even installing a Braille sign for the Walker Nature Center’s restrooms, among other changes. The committee also joined other Reston community groups in calling for a redesign of the unusual pedestrian refuge on Village Road.
Fredgren was honored for his work advocating for accessibility, which extended to service on a Fairfax County interagency committee that reviewed the local government’s policies, with the title of Lord Fairfax, bestowed in 2015 by then-Hunter Mill District supervisor Cathy Hudgins.
In addition to leading the RAC for 17 years, Fredgren has been a supporter of the Student Peace Awards of Fairfax County, and he co-coordinates St. John Neumann Catholic Church of Reston’s monthly prayer vigils for peace, life and justice.
“Ken has spent his life lifting up others. Now it’s our turn to lift him up. Every donation — large or small — helps protect his safety, dignity, and independence,” Gamboa said on the GoFundMe campaign page. “If you can’t give right now, please share this campaign with anyone who knows Ken from Reston, St. John Neumann, the Student Peace Awards, or his accessibility advocacy. Let’s show Ken that the community he served has not forgotten him.”
