Hello all! My friend Michael has Muscular Dystophy and is in desperate need of a new van. Unfortunately, these types of vehicles are custom made and therefore cost ALOT (like $90K!). So, if anyone is looking for a good cause to donate to, you can read more about it here: http://www.michaeloconnell.com/van/ Or, if any of you can help out with some links to his site, that would be awesome too !
I know what it's like, not personally, but my only brother used to have the same problem. Unfortunately he passed away 9 years ago, God bless his soul. Thank you for the link. I donated. I hope it will make his life easier.
I'm sorry to hear that Thanks for your support . Michael really is one of the coolest people I know and he deserves this SO much.
I can't make a donation, Summer, but I've added a link to my signature. Hopefully that'll help some. Good luck on the van, I can't imagine how hard getting one of those is given the trouble we're having trying to get a powered wheel chair for my dad. Let me know if there's any other way I can help out.
You guys are SO awesome! I just got an email from Michael and he is totally blown away. It has only been 24 hours since he made that donation page and there has been almost $1,000 donated! AND, since this forum and my blog are the only places that people have read about this, I'm going to say that the majority of that came from members here . Woohoo!!
Done. Donated. I also submitted the story to reddit.com (sorry, don't have a link -- maybe someone could find it )
I'm not precisely sure, but one place told us they could get him one for around $6,000 up front and then bill his insurance (Medicare) for the balance and to try and get the money back. We're working with a different place to try to get one without the $6,000 upfront money, but it's a long drawn out process and not looking very good. The place we're working with says that Medicare will only pay for one mobility device (this includes if they got you a cane they won't get you a wheel chair), so since when he had the stroke in 2001 he was rushed into a manual wheel chair (which had an accident :/) by the morons at the retirement home he had to spend a couple of weeks in, we're now looking at his insurance refusing to get him the powered chair his doctor says that he needs to have. We're still hopefull that the folks we're working with will be able to get past the red tape the request is currently caught up in. Woohoo! That's great news. ::applaudes fellow DPers:: way to go people!
Wow, that's a lot. At least insurance will (eventually) cover it. But it's tough to try and scrape thousands of dollars together when you don't know when the insurance company will pay up. Good luck getting your dad some wheels .
I'd love to donate put paypal has my account on lock .. is there any other way I can donate / help out?
Thanks, Moq! If this keeps up, Michael will be tooling around town in that new flame-covered van in no time ! If you can put some links to Michaels website, that would help
I have often wondered what would have happened if I would simply ask for help when needed. I felt compelled to give. It felt right.
Help ViciousSummer's friend, Michael! This is all i can do atm, will place this in my signature, hope it will bring in a few bucks
Let me know what to link to, anchor text, description, title, etc., and I will put a listing in the KingBloom Directory, including a site wide link as well. I do the MDA lockup yearly, and always seem to leave before I get there. Did about $2500 one year just by emailing my customers to donate. Let me know or PM me.
WOw! That's great ! You can use whatever anchor text/title/description will best fit for the directory. How about something along the lines of: Donate to a Good Cause - Help a cool guy with Muscular Dystrophy stay mobile! It's totally up to you, though . Thanks again!