Meet Walt, our brother and an amazing human being and the inspiration for our Scoop Plate business.

Walt Liimatainen was a smart, funny man who loved the outdoors. Early in his marriage, he and his wife Pam figured out working for fifty weeks a year in order to spend two vacation weeks doing what they loved best was silly. So, they packed up their child and a few belongings and moved to the bountiful majesty of British Columbia, Canada. Walt would come home after work, jump in his jeep, and journey to a favorite fishing or hunting spot. It was a great life!

Until one fateful day, his legs gave out and he found himself crawling 2 miles out from the woods. Many doctors later, he was diagnosed with adult onset muscular dystrophy, a degenerative disease that eventually resulted in complete loss of muscle strength of his entire body.

Walt’s humor, political activism, and community outreach never waned even as his muscles withered and he became more and more dependent on wheelchairs and adaptive tools. Walt created a not-for-profit called Fishing Forever to provide opportunities for disabled children to experience the joy of reeling in their first walleye.

In the last decade of his life, Walt had minimal hand/arm mobility. With help from gravity and an adaptive spoon, he used a scoop plate to assist him to eat independently.  I HATED that plate.

The plate looked like the one to the left, rife with scratches as a result from use. I could image the bacteria lurking in those black gouges. The plate was, in a word, ugly.