inspire Archives » Michelle Trauring

Mikayla Mott takes a seat outside the Ding Repair Cafe on a recent Monday morning, a warm winter breeze tousling her long blonde hair and dancing with the wind chimes nearby.

Under the basking sun, she and the restaurant are sheltered from the noise and traffic and throngs of people at the bustling heart of San Juan del Sur, a coastal town in Nicaragua that the 26-year-old East Hampton native has called her second home for nearly three years.

Here, it is mostly peaceful and quiet, just three blocks from the bay.

A month ago, it was an entirely different scene at the unassuming cafe, which served as a staging area following a pair of hurricanes, Eta and Iota, that landed within days of each other and devastated countless communities across the country. Here, Ms. Mott and her team of volunteers raised over $10,000 in donations and collected countless supplies, which they sorted, divvied up and delivered to those in need.

With a simple blink, Chris Pendergast wrote one letter. Then the next, and the next — continuing on this way for hundreds of thousands of characters selected on a 15-inch computer screen.

And he used only his eyes.

The ensuing words unfold across the 314 pages of his recently published memoir, “Blink Spoken Here: Tales From A Journey To Within,” written with the help of his wife, Christine, almost 28 years after he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s Disease, a devastating neuromuscular disease with no cure.

His prognosis was that he only had 36 months to live.

“I refused to simply wait to die,” he wrote in an email, using his eye-controlled computer from his home in Miller Place. “With Gehrig’s grit, I chose to live with ALS, not die from it. I wrote stories as our family made the journey. It evolved into the book.”

Posts tagged inspire

A Humanitarian in the Making: Mikayla Mott Helps Raise $10K for Nicaragua Hurricane Relief Efforts

“Blink Spoken Here”: Chris and Christine Pendergast Pen Book About ALS Journey Using Blink Technology