Anything under 60 degrees? Too cold.

“I just stay in the house like a bear,” she laughed. “And then once April gets here, I go back outside.”

And when Keaira says she goes back outside, she means it.

There are concerts to see, friends to visit and trips to take. This summer alone, she traveled to Chicago with her sister, had plans to see J. Cole in Kansas City with her brother and was already looking ahead to a September trip to Seattle. New York is a regular destination, too, where one of her friends lives.

“I don’t really get out during the winter,” she said. “So when it does finally get hot outside, I try to make the most of it.”

Keaira has limb-girdle muscular dystrophy, a progressive condition that affects the strength of the muscles in her arms and legs. She was born with muscular dystrophy, but she remembers first noticing its effects around age 12.

At school, other kids walked faster. Stairs became harder. If she sat on the floor, getting back up took more effort.

The changes happened so gradually that Keaira often adapted without realizing she was doing it. Her mom once asked when she had started using one hand to lift the other. Keaira couldn't remember.

“It’s like I just woke up one day and it happened,” she said. “So I just adjusted.”

Doctors told Keaira she would likely stop walking by 18. She made it to 31.

Even as her body changed, Keaira kept finding ways to do the things she loved. She taught herself to do makeup and eventually spent years doing it professionally. When raising both arms became difficult, she propped one arm on cardboard boxes so she could keep working.

She taught herself to do nails during COVID, too. These days, a set might take her an entire day, but that doesn't stop her.

“I love art and anything that can just be hands-on, be creative,” she said.

Keaira has fought hard to hold onto as much independence as she can, even as her body has made certain parts of daily life more difficult. She uses a power wheelchair and needs help transferring in and out of bed, showering, dressing, and navigating other everyday tasks. Thankfully, she’s surrounded by siblings and friends who never hesitate to lend a hand.

But there is one piece of independence she misses more than anything else.

“Just being able to get up and leave the house when you want,” she said.

Her primary power wheelchair weighs around 400 pounds, making transportation complicated. And in St. Louis, accessible transportation isn't always easy to find. Unlike cities Keaira has visited like Chicago and New York, where wheelchair-accessible rides can be summoned through an app, options at home are more limited and often expensive.

That meant something as simple as going to a restaurant or the store often required coordinating with a sibling and working around someone else's schedule.

Keaira understood. Everyone has jobs and lives of their own.

But sometimes, you just want to go.

That’s where Chive Charities donors came in.

Together, you helped fund a $2,572 mobility scooter light enough for Keaira’s family to easily transport in their SUVs. It can raise her to seat level, allowing her to slide into the vehicle rather than having someone lift her up and lower her back down, something that has become increasingly difficult on her body.

When Keaira spoke with us, her new scooter had just arrived. Her brother had put it together that morning, and it was already charging as she started thinking about all the places it might take her and, more importantly, the things she could finally do on her own.

“I could go to the store now by myself,” she said.

She could get a pedicure more easily. Go out without the physical strain of repeated lifting. Travel with a mobility device her family could actually manage.

So many little things that aren’t so little when you've lost the ability to do them on your own.

Keaira knows there will always be things she has to navigate differently. She has good days and hard ones. But she has never been particularly interested in sitting on the sidelines of her own life.

At one point, isolation did get to her. She found herself staying home more and becoming depressed. Eventually, she decided she needed to get back into the world.

“Still go outside even if it's just to the park for a little while,” she said. “Just get outside. Be around other people.”

A few years ago, Keaira also found something she'd spent years searching for: other women living with muscular dystrophy. One became one of her closest friends, someone she talks to every day and visits in Atlanta.

There is something powerful, she said, about having someone who simply understands.

Maybe that's part of why Keaira is so open about her disability now. She wants people to understand what life with muscular dystrophy can look like. And hers looks pretty full.

“My life is great, honestly,” she said.

Now, thanks to Chive Charities donors, that life just got a little bigger.

A relatively small group of people came together and changed what an ordinary Tuesday can look like for Keaira. A trip to the store on her own. A pedicure. A concert. A vacation. Or simply deciding she wants to go somewhere and having one fewer barrier standing between her and the door.

That’s what your $15 or $20 can do when it meets someone else’s $15 or $20. On its own, it might not feel life-changing. But together, it can be.

Together, it was.

You don't have to fund an entire grant to change someone's life. You just have to be one of the people who shows up. Donate today and help give the next Chive Charities recipient a little more freedom, one small gift at a time. DONATE HERE.