Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Raising Money For a Van and Lift!
It sucks having to raise money! I wish we were independently wealthy and could afford to just go out and buy what our family needs! But, alas, like most Americans in today's economy, it takes most of what we have to make ends meet. I thank my Heavenly Father every day for the blessings he has given us. We are thankful that Kevin has a good job and can provide shelter, food, utilities, and all the necessities we need in life. We are thankful that the younger children qualify for Medicaid because of their disabilities, and due to that their medications and most of their medical equipment is paid for between the Medicaid and our private insurance!
But there are some things for us that are a necessity because of our lifestyle. Yes, it is a lifestyle we have chosen! We wouldn't trade it for all the riches in the world. Because we feel we have all the riches in the world - in the form of four darling children who are worth millions and millions! But sometimes things come along that we are not able to provide for these precious little ones. It doesn't happen often. And when it does, I feel really bad, and usually we just make do or do without! NEVER have we gone the route of fundraising for our own family. It just isn't something we have needed or wanted to do.
But recently, with the rapid growth (unexpectedly) of our family, with the addition of Joshua (planned) and Sophie Faith (unplanned) we are faced with the fact that within the year, our sweet ride (haha) will no longer be adequate for our family's needs! We currently own a year 2000 Chevy custom van. It has a wheelchair lift and we have removed the captain's seats in the middle to put two sets of tie-downs in. With the tie-downs and the lift, we are able to put Chrissy and Stephen in the van in their wheelchairs without having to transfer them to seats and they ride in their chairs when we go anywhere. This is necessary now that the both of them are way too heavy to transfer back and forth between car seats and wheelchairs! It has worked well for us for the last two years, and the van, though old, is still running pretty well!
Now, Joshua has his own wheelchair on order, and is already using a trial one! So we are putting Chrissy and Stephen in at the tie-down locations, and lifting Josh out of his chair, storing it in the rear of the van, and letting him ride in his car seat. Sophie doesn't have a chair yet, so she rides in a car seat as well. The van doesn't have the new latch system, so the car seats are strapped in the old fashioned way on the bench seat at the rear of the van!. It works and we are doing okay for now.
But it occurred to me that soon this will no longer work! Within the next six months, Sophie will be ready for her own wheelchair. Like Chrissy, she will have a manual chair that has to be pushed by her caregivers. So it will be a larger, bulkier chair. At that time, we will not have room in the rear of the van for both Josh's chair and Sophie's chair! So we will have to take only two kids at a time or take two cars when we all need to go somewhere! If we take two cars, the minivan we own will not hold the larger wheelchairs either, so not sure how exactly we will manage the whole family going anywhere together farther than the few miles we travel to Church on Sundays!
It is a daunting thought to figure out how to get a new van that is extended length and will hold all four chairs! I have started looking on ebay, but short of getting a wheelchair BUS I haven't seen much! And I can't see myself driving a bus to Texas Children's Hospital or on family vacations!! LOL
So, what to do?? We have started saving our dollars, but it will take us quite a few years to save up cash for a new van! We really don't want to put ourselves in major debt to buy one either. That doesn't help our family either! We are trying to come up with ways to fund raise locally, so if anyone has good suggestions on that, please comment or let us know!!
For now, for lack of other options, we started a fundraising campaign on Indiegogo website. For those of you who have seen the recent stories on the bus monitor in New York who had money raised to send her on vacation, her campaign was started on Indiegogo! Last I heard, they had raised over $650,000.00 for her in a matter of days!! Well, that got me thinking! Now, we don't need $65,000.00 much less $650,000.00!! We only need enough for the van (around $20,000) and the lift and tie-downs (around $10,000). And we will be doing our own saving and scrimping for most of that!! BUT, I figured it probably couldn't hurt to reach out to friends and family and ask them to share our link for the fundraiser and see if we can't spread the word for help in getting the vehicle for the kids!
Let me be clear on that - for those that we know and love who have special needs kids and/or are struggling themselves, PLEASE DO NOT DONATE! We would never, ever want to impose on those we love who themselves have lots of needs in their lives!! We appreciate you for just being there and supporting us in a thousand different ways as our friends and loved ones!!
But if you have friends on your facebook, or have ways to spread the link to the fundraiser, feel free to share the link!! Who knows, maybe we will get lucky and be able to raise at least half of what we need. That alone would ease our burden greatly!
SO here it is, the link to the fundraiser! I will only blog about this once, and only share the link once here and maybe a couple of times on my facebook page. Then we will leave it up to you to spread the link from there! If it doesn't go anywhere, then that is okay too. Whatever we raise will go into an account we are starting specifically for the purchase of the van and lift! We thank anybody that contributes or shares the link from the bottom of our hearts!
Thanks everyone for lifting us up!! In many ways and in your hearts!! Love you all!
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