Gabrielle Hodges: Advocacy with a Little Pageantry

When native Atlantan Gabrielle Hodges joins a video call to be interviewed for this story, she’s on her way to an appointment at Shepherd Center — and she’s wearing a crown and sash that she earned when she became Ms. Wheelchair Georgia 2026.

Gabrielle won the title in March. The competition included delivering a speech to share her advocacy platform, which focuses on improving accessibility in Georgia's transportation and infrastructure.

But there was a time when Gabrielle had to work hard just to regain her voice. In Sept. 2019, she sustained a spinal cord injury during an ATV excursion while vacationing in Aruba. The hospital in Aruba was not equipped to perform the surgery she needed, so she was medically transported to Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta. She arrived at Grady on Oct. 2. There, she had surgery for her spinal cord injury and was treated for other complications. And she learned about Shepherd Center.

“To be honest, I had no knowledge of Shepherd because, of course, I never knew anyone with a spinal injury or brain injury,” she says. But when she and her family were contemplating where Gabrielle should go after leaving Grady, “Somehow all of the nurses and the doctors were saying, ‘Shepherd, Shepherd, Shepherd, Shepherd.’ That's all I was hearing in the hospital,” she recalls.

Gabrielle transferred to Shepherd Center on Oct. 31.

“I remember it like it was yesterday. It was the Halloween of 2019. Everybody was dressed up in Halloween costumes.”

Gabrielle participated in inpatient therapy at Shepherd for nine months. In speech therapy, she worked on regaining her voice; in physical therapy, she worked to strengthen her core, roll, and improve bed mobility.

“OT, they showed me … dressing, my bathing, getting my clothes put on, things like that — how to do my own makeup, hair, take my medicine, med management,” she recalls. She also worked to strengthen her hand function.

On recreation therapy outings, she learned how to navigate other tasks.

“They taught me how to use my credit cards, how to ride the public transportation system.” The pageant-winner’s favorite outing was to a nearby nail salon. But she enjoyed spending time at the hospital, too.

“I used to love going out to the [Anna and Hays Mershon] Secret Garden. That was another one of my go-tos, especially during COVID,” she says.

And as she explored the hospital in her power chair, she forged friendships with other patients and staff.  “I gained relationships — still to this day, like people know me by name,” she says. She keeps in touch with some of the people she connected with while she was an inpatient at Shepherd.

Gabrielle, now 41, graduated from Shepherd in 2020 and returned to her home. She says she was “career-driven” before her accident. She studied business at Georgia State University and started working at Walmart. She worked her way up to general store manager and then moved to the digital space at Walmart.com. Although she has decided she can’t return to work right now, she has made advocating for people with disabilities her focus. When she saw a post about Ms. Wheelchair on social media, she connected with previous winners to get more information, and the rest is history.

In June, Gabrielle received a commendation from Georgia Governor Brian Kemp for her advocacy work. She’s busy sharing her platform and fundraising to cover the cost of a trip to Michigan this August, where she’d like to compete for another crown — Ms. Wheelchair America 2027.

Until then, she still comes to Shepherd on an outpatient basis — she says it’s one of her second homes. You may even see her in the hallway — you can’t miss the crown.

Written by Ruth Underwood