Thirty years ago, Rita Ebel’s life changed forever. A car accident left her with partial paralysis, and in the years that followed, she also walked through two divorces and even battled cancer.
But if you meet Rita today, you won’t find her weighed down by hardship. At 67, she’s quick to laugh, always smiling, and has a way of making everyone around her feel lighter. “There is no situation that is just bad,” she told Ability Magazine. “We all need to find that tiny good part in the hard times ourselves.”
Rita can walk short distances, but she mainly relies on her wheelchair. After her accident, she quickly noticed that many shops in her hometown of Hanau, Germany, weren’t built for someone like her.
Owners would say, “Just knock, and we’ll help you in.” But for Rita, who valued her independence, that wasn’t a real solution. “If you’re used to being independent, you don’t want to stop at every door and ask for help,” she explained.
So, Rita decided to take matters into her own hands. Instead of wood or concrete, she began building wheelchair ramps out of something surprising—and colorful: Lego bricks.
The only problem? Lego sets today can cost over $100, and the right pieces aren’t easy to find. “Getting the Legos is actually the hardest part,” she said. Families tend to hold on to them because they’re passed down from one generation to the next. And when people do donate, the pieces are often from themed sets like Star Wars or Lego Friends, which don’t work well for her ramps.
So, Rita did something that wasn’t easy for her—she reached out on social media and asked for help. And that simple step opened the door to a wave of kindness.
“My very first donor asked how many Lego pieces I thought I’d need for my first ramp,” Rita remembered with a smile. “I told him I might need around a thousand to even get started. Not long after, he showed up with two giant boxes full of Lego.”
That simple act of kindness sparked something bigger than Rita ever imagined. Since 2019, she has built countless ramps and become lovingly known as “Lego Oma”—German for “Lego Grandma.”
Her bright, colorful ramps have found their way to candy shops, breweries, pet stores, and many other places in her town, slowly but surely making Hanau more welcoming, one brick at a time.
Now, the official building codes in Germany say wheelchair ramps should have a very gentle incline—no steeper than 6%. Rita’s Lego ramps don’t always meet those exact standards, but they stand for something just as important: creativity, independence, and a community coming together to help everyone feel included.
Rita explained that building a ramp isn’t always easy. “If you need to cover a 15-centimeter step, the ramp could end up being several meters long—and most sidewalks just don’t have that much space,” she said.
That’s why her Lego ramps don’t technically meet the official rules in Germany. But city officials have seen the good they do, and instead of criticizing, they cheer her on. “At the end of the day, wheelchair-users don’t care much about regulations if the ramp gives them the freedom to go in and out of a shop on their own,” Rita added.
And it’s not just people in wheelchairs who benefit. Parents with strollers, neighbors on crutches, and anyone who needs a little extra help find the ramps a blessing. The bright, colorful patterns also make the ramps easier to spot for people with low vision, giving them an early warning that an incline is ahead.
It usually takes Rita just three or four hours to build one ramp. Thanks to all the donations she’s received, time is no longer the challenge—it’s finding enough room to store the piles of Lego bricks waiting to become someone’s path to independence.
Thankfully, Rita’s landlord stepped in and gave her a second basement room—just for storing Lego. And it’s a good thing, because the donations keep pouring in.
In February, Rita shared a joyful moment on Instagram. A local kindergarten class, called Rainbowland, came to visit from the nearby town of Babenhausen. The children arrived with bags of colorful Lego bricks to donate, and their smiles lit up the whole workshop.
“The children were so excited to see the Lego ramp, the driveway helpers, and all the Lego pieces in the workshop,” Rita wrote, posting photos of herself surrounded by the happy kids. “A big thank-you to the daycare for this wonderful donation!”
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