MARYSVILLE – Like a lot of students at Marysville-Pilchuck High School, Malia Grato and Victor Solis want to sit with classmates while cheering on the Tomahawk football team when the season starts at home Sept. 1.

Problem is, both use wheelchairs. Until this year, they have had to sit away from their fellow students at Quil Ceda Stadium. Malia and Victor decided to do something about it. They wrote a letter to the Marysville School District.

“On behalf of all students with disabilities, as well as our friends here at M-PHS, can you please help us by finding a way to provide wheelchair access?” their letter states.

Malia, who was born with spina bifida, and Victor got the MSD moving. Recently, wheelchair ramps were put in at the south end of the stadium where the M-P student section is.

“This project came out of a class discussion after Victor and his family had come to a football game and had to sit on the other side of the stadium from his friends and all the action of the cheerleaders, band, etc.,” teacher Jim Strickland said. “One of our class mottos is, ‘Find something worth doing and do it!’ It is very rewarding to see students putting this motto into practice.”

MSD facilities director Craig Dennis said he was impressed with the professional manner in which the two students, and the entire Life Skills class, approached the project. “It was the right thing to do,” Dennis said.

Malia said she is most happy that her and Victor’s voices were heard and “not just put aside.”

She said it is not the first time she has fought for more rights for disabled people. “I worked on my own some to change the way school has been,” she said. “Kids like me and Victor don’t get noticed.”

She said when it came to field trips she often didn’t get to go because it cost the district more to use a wheelchair-accessible bus.

Malia also was involved in the bullying movement that was brought to the forefront at M-P last year.

“I experienced it as well,” she said. “Kids keep it to themselves.”

She said she worked with Student Resource Officer Chris Sutherland to provide resources on who to go to when students are bullied. Malia said when she was a freshman-sophomore she kept to herself. But when she became an intern in the special education classes, “I advocated for kids who couldn’t speak for themselves.”