Charities, wheelchairs and other stuff

[LollipopViolet]

Does anyone know about the funding process charities go through? H has applied to one for an RGK wheelchair, as her current one is actually dangerous to use (no brakes, the nhs said they'd fixed it, they haven't) and also, she's going to start learning to drive hopefully this year and she can't lift her current chair into a car boot, so needs a lighter one.

Any experiences of both charity applications, and also (long shot but hey) RGK chairs would be appreciated.

We've also decided, we'd like to do some fundraising for either Scope, or the charity she's applied to (Caudwell Children), and we had an idea of organising either a demo of wheelchair basketball, or combining that with a sort of, not give it a go as such, but a "put yourselves in our shoes" thing where if we got enough interest, we could get some of my uni friends to play alongside the local team. Any experience of things like that? I know some may disagree with that, because of nastiness from people etc, but I think we could raise a fair bit of money doing it... I dunno, that's on the back burner right now til we can meet up and sort logistics, we know there's a local team (one of H's friends plays on it), so it could work to help raise their profile in the community too.

Oh I don't mind working hard Riven, actually since making my film, I understand the impact things like this can have, because when I showed my film, SO many of my peers said, "Wow, didn't know people in wheelchairs could go on the ice!" And it wasn't through being nasty, it was just ignorance, and the more of that we get rid of in my generation, the better things should be!

I think Caudwell go up to 19, and I'm sure when one of their reps was in uni looking for volunteers, they said they could fund mobility related stuff, so hopefully H has some luck with them, will look up Whizz Kids though, and pass the details on.

Ah, Whizz Kids you have to be under 18 at the time of application, so not approachable in this case It annoys me so much that the wheelchair manufacturers charge SO much that people like my friend have to go to charities just to get something that IMHO should be free! All she wants is a lighter chair, something she herself can actually lift (I struggle when I have to help her get the thing out of her house, though I'm only little at 5ft 2!), and propel herself up a slope, even small slopes need help with her current chair!

Grrr, and my uncle's powerchairs? £6000 that we had to find ourselves!

Glitteryboys powerchair was funded through Caudwell, we got over £17,000 from them towards it.
my friends wee boy has an RGK M2 and it is very light indeed!

£17,000! Wow, that's great that they helped you out, gives me a good vibe that they'll approve my mate's application when she sends it in. We're in the same county as them, don't know if that helps applications or not! Worth a go though. Just googled the M2, that's one nice looking chair! A lot of kids one's I've seen tend to be very bulky and geared towards parents or carers pushing, but that looks like even a very young child could get about no problem!

have you looked into SCOPE?
thsy arn't what they used to be, don't help individuals so much and withdrew funding from one (at least) of thier schools, imo they just front shops.

you know it always annoys me that in all but one of the Scope charity shops i have ever see there is NO level access! obviously not for the people they're there to help then eh?

I noticed that about our local Scope shop glittery, there's a huge step at the entrance!

Oh, and Riven, we had to get my uncle's chair new because he needed a certain kind of seat, but now we get cheap ones when they come up and just swap the seat over, or harvest them for parts

I'm starting the charity knock on doors now to try get ds a powerchair

yep our scope shops the same and once I heaved ds
in they look at him like he is going take place apart maybe o ce he's got powerchair let him loose in there

Lollipop what about contacting some ms schools ds old one had a basketball team that used wheelchairs even though kids were a nt may e mixed teams but all in chairs

Oooh will ask around about schools. Like I say, we know there's a local team, who will all have the right kind of sporty chairs, it's just a case of finding another team's worth of chairs then getting the people, and a place, and getting people to come and spectate, and donate obviously. Will have a nosey on some websites for ideas how to go about it.

Isn't that odd about Scope shops? I thought it was just ours being in an older row of shops so they couldn't change them. Obviously not.

No no our Scope is brilliant: they run something they call an Inclusion Service which does a huge number of things to help people with all sorts of disabilities; we have loads of help from them (paid for by PCT mainly and some SS) including eg a helper to enable my dD to attend mainstream school; night helper for us 4 nights a week; honestly they could do with all the extra help you could give them and I am sure would be helpful if you wanted to run an event for them. (But I am NOT impressed by what you say about the shops ...) Also, I am not sure what H's reason for the wheelchair is, but many of the charities for specific health problems do also have funds to assist families/individuals; eg the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign has something called the Joseph Patrick trust which part funded our chair for my dd ...

Cloelia, H has spastic diplegia CP, we were actually considering Scope as our charity for the event for that reason. If they do so many good things then I think we'll definitely try and fundraise for them! They sound wonderful, I've only really heard about/seen the shops, so my knowledge about them is quite limited.

Thank you all for the advice and info, will definitely get something going fundraising wise!