Imagine life where your kid's disability forces you to ask for help to save their quality of life.
For those of us with two working legs, life is usually a pretty cool place. We can hop over curbs, jump over cracks, leap over a puddles. But people in a wheelchair face a different battle. Access is a terrible problem for people in wheelchairs. I know, I have five students in wheelchairs this year.
We face challenges every day in our quest to make the world a place that they can reach from their chairs.
A wheelchair accessible vehicle sounds like a luxury but it isn't. You have no idea how difficult it is for a person in a wheelchair to use public transportation. In my town the Social Security Office is on a steep hill. If you're in a wheelchair and can't be dropped at the door, it means you have to fight gravity as you struggle to go from the busstop to the doors of Social Security. To get special bus service you have to be able to make it downtown to the bus office to apply, then again to be interviewed (to see if you are disabled enough to be considered) and then you have to go yearly to prove that, despite what might be a severe disablity, you haven't gotten all better from your spina bifida or your severe cerebral palsy or to make sure that that big chunk of brain that was removed after your car accident hasn't grown back. It can be a terrible struggle just to get to the doctor.
Public Transportation might not even be a possibility for the fragile or those who can't get cold. There are some families that must go to the dr constantly to keep their special needs kids healthy. A wheelchair accessible vehicle can be a must for these families. They aren't a luxury, they are a necessity.
Wishadoo is currently asking help for a DUer and his family to be able to buy a new engine for their wheelchair van. I know a lot of people read my posts and so I will use this platform to ask you to check out Wishadoo and consider helping this family fix their van.
I currently have a post on DU, at the top of the Greatest Page with 5184 views. If all of those people had just donated ONE DOLLAR, the van engine would already be fixed. So, I will use my gentle powers of persuasion to say, "c'mon DU, let's see if we can pull together once again to make something happen." We could have this done in a weekend if we get the word out.
Let's get this van fixed: http://www.wishadoo.org/wishlist/139/help-for-new-engine-for-disabled-van/
'Tis the season for an act of kindness.
= new reply since forum marked as read
but I may ask you to do it every time because you're an EXQUISITE writer!!!
Thank you so very, very much. Beautiful.
See, here's the thing.
Wishadoo is simply providing the space. Hopefully people will have a PayPal account so people can donate to them -- directly -- no middle person at all. When they don't have a PayPal account it gets trickier but there are ways of doing it, and certainly snail mail is an option, though not optimal.
The only widget I've found that shows the progress of donations -- a counter, as you say -- can only be created by the person who owns the PayPal account. It can be a bit tricky to set it up and most of the people who have posted at the Wishlist aren't overly technically inclined.
I'm still trying to find something that can at least be manually updated to show progress. Do you know of such a script or tool or widget? I don't think I've searched for a "counter script" or anything using the keyword counter, but I'll do that today.
I would LOVE for you to write for Wishadoo, about anything that moves you. I'd love for others to write about the various issues facing us, enlightening others, opening hearts, and showing how a bit of empathy and compassion can change the course of things, one person at a time.
There's a lot more there than meets the eye.
We should chat. I'll PM you in a bit.
Thank you, JanT.
Nice to "meet" you, btw. 
I'm the founder of Wishadoo, and DonRedmond was absolutely wonderful to create this OP and link to the Wishlist Post in question.
Glad you bookmarked it. Hope you visit regularly and join. It's a social network, like Facebook, without the Big Brother aspect and with more focused intent of "doing good."
