Belinda needed a supportive chair that would allow her to sit and eat comfortably at the family table.

Until now, Belinda’s widowed mother either sat her 9 y.o. daughter on her lap during meal times, or held her from the side to keep her balanced on the dining chair while feeding her at the same time… we thought they both deserved better than that and the perfect solution was a Rifton Activity Chair .

It took a little longer to raise the $4,300 needed than we’d hoped, but 7 weeks after launching her appeal we’ve finally done it!

Many thanks to everyone who gave their buck along the way!

In October 2011 we launched Maddy’s Car Appeal to help raise the almost $30,000 needed to modify the family car to be wheelchair accessible for Maddy.  With the help of the members of this wonderful I Give A Buck Community and the amazing team at Melbourne’s Gold 104 radio station, the funds were raised and the car was off to NSW for its modifications!

Recently, we received an update from Maddy’s family and a few photos too and we’d like to share that with you all…

Hi Barb & Liat

ON THE ROAD AGAIN!

Some great news for you both, we finally have our car back and Maddy can now be driven around comfortably and safely in her wheelchair.

It took quite some time to do, twice as long as they originally told us (12 weeks instead of 6!) but its all over and done with.

Maddy seems quite impressed with her new seating position and it is a dream come true for me as I can now take her out and not worry about how my back is going to be feeling at the end of the day.

The transition time getting her in and out of the car is remarkably fast as well, I can’t believe how little time is needed to dock the wheelchair, put her brakes and seat belt on and then away we go.

No more lifting her in and out of the wheelchair and squeezing her into that horrid car seat, those days are now behind us. YEAH!

Our many heartfelt thanks goes out to all the loyal staff at IGAB and to all those kind and generous people who donated to Maddy’s appeal; on behalf of our entire family we say thank you once again!

Without the immense support that Maddy received from the public this would not have ever been possible.

Adrian and I feel an overwhelming sense of relief that this major hurdle has been overcome and we would like to pass on our sincerest gratitude to all those who contributed.

THANK YOU EVERYONE!

All the very best,

Traci, Adrian, Madison and Josh.

If you were one of the special people that made this family’s dream come true, take a bow! And, if you weren’t part of our community back then but would like to share in the love, hop on over to make the same dream come true by giving a buck to Harry and to Zac.

Great work again people!

Barb Blashki – Founder

We recently received a very welcome $500 towards Harry’s Appeal from a couple who would prefer to remain anonymous but who would like to share this thought with you…

We just sold our house and it went for a bit more than we expected, so we decided to pass on some money to an IGAB appeal for a family that needs the money much more than we do. I’d encourage anyone out there to give something if possible. I can guarantee it will make you feel good.

They’d read about Harry’s Appeal in the local paper and had kept the article until their home sold in the hope that they could then do something special for him – and they sure did – nice huh?

Our beautiful new collection boxes are ready to go! We’d love to get them all out into the community as soon as possible so if you have a business that you think would make a good host to one please drop Barb a line and we’ll get one off in the mail to you straight away. There is no cost to you.

They are lockable, re-usable, strong, elegant perspex and have a great vertical design so that they don’t take up too much of your valuable counter space.

Once they are half full you simply unlock the box, empty and count the contents, deposit the funds into our bank account (by any means that suits you best) and start collecting all over again. We send you everything you need – including a record keeping sheet. Too easy!

The boxes are clear on the front, have stickers on the sides and a changeable piece of card slotted into the back section so that you can co-brand the box with your own card that could say something like “ABC Widgets proudly supports I Give A Buck Foundation” or similar.

Last week Harry’s Appeal moved into Phase 2 and one of our regular supporters came up with a great idea to keep the funds rolling in for Harry until his appeal is finished – and it’s something we could do for any children in the future who have an appeal that takes longer than 6 weeks to complete.

Basically, the idea is:

What if Harry had a team of supporters amidst the IGAB community? A group of people continuing to contribute to his appeal until the target is reached. Harry’s Team.

The team would continue to support Harry’s Appeal in any way that they could – donating a few bucks each week, encouraging friends to support Harry, hosting one of our collection boxes in their business, perhaps even holding a simple fundraising event like a morning tea – all in support of Harry.

We really loved this idea (thank you Claire) and if you do too please drop me a line. Claire can’t be Harry’s Team all on her own so we need a few others to hop on board too.

Harry lives in Torquay VIC so perhaps some members from that area might like to take up the challenge?

The lovely folk at Monbulk PharmaSave Pharmacy and Kilsyth PharmaSave Pharmacy, both in VIC,  will soon have coin collection boxes on their counters in support of local boy Zac and his current appeal – and we can’t thank them enough for such wonderful support!

If you live in the area please support these terrific pharmacies. You can find them at:

Monbulk PharmaSave Pharmacy – 98 Main Rd, Monbulk.

Kilsyth PharmaSave Pharmacy – Shops 19 & 20, Kilsyth Shopping Centre, 520 Mount Dandenong Rd, Kilsyth.

The Rifton Activity Chair prescribed for Belinda is a pretty special chair. Following two years of therapist-guided design, the result is the most easily adjusted, versatile and therapist-friendly special needs chair on the market.

There are lots of benefits for both Belinda and her mum:

• No tools are needed for any adjustment
• It can be easily adjusted while Belinda is in the chair
• The tilt–in–space feature allows varying degrees of recline for safe swallowing
• Springs allow for a self-calming movement
• The armrests can be height and angle-adjusted. The forearm prompts are extremely versatile in adjustment to facilitate trunk and head control while sitting
• The chair features a foot pump for height adjustment. This allows Belinda to be lowered until her feet are on the floor, or raised to sit comfortably at 32″ high table. The chair’s height can also be easily set for lateral transfers.
• The contoured headrest supports the head and keeps it in proper alignment for safe swallowing.

This chair is absolutely necessary to offer Belinda adequate postural control and good positioning during meal times instead of being propped up on her mum’s knee as is the case at the moment.

But, in addition to meal times, the Activity Chair has a multitude of other uses.

Belinda is fully wheelchair dependent and the chair can be used not only at home but at school too – enabling her to sit independently to enjoy table top activities wherever she may be. Belinda attends Croydon Special Development School full-time.

Can you imagine how it will feel for Belinda to be so much more independent? To not have to rely on her mum supporting her at the table? Meal times will actually become the social events that they should be rather than the nightmare that they currently are.

Please help us to fund this chair for Belinda – both we and Belinda will never be able to thank you enough.

To donate to Belinda’s Appeal visit her Appeal Page

Last week we ran a Family Challenge on our Facebook Page. Families were given a week to donate a few bucks in their family name and the family that donated the most at the end of the challenge would win a little prize.

The competitive nature of we humans got to work and the results were outstanding! The Vanags family and the Oberin/Buchanan families vied to keep themselves at the top of the table all week (which was great fun to watch) and in the end the gong went to the Oberin/Buchanan family with a whopping total of $205 in donations and the purchase of an IGAB t-shirt too!

We wanted to pay tribute to every family that participated in making last week a great week for the kids – and particularly wanted to recognise the ongoing support of the Vanags Family and the Oberin/Buchanan family.

The Vanags family have been avid supporters of our work for over a year now and last year David & Tanya Vanags held a fundraising dinner for us that raised $48,900 in just one night. Despite this amazing contribution they continue to support just about every appeal we launch and repeatedly spread the word about our work to their friends and family – we love you guys!

The Oberin/Buchanan family are just as special to us. Anne was the very first person (outside my immediate family!) to join our BIG Buckers Club with a fabulous donation of $500 to our very first appeal back in January 2010. Her donation was prompted by her daughter Ricky’s $50 donation. Ricky donated that $50 despite having challenges of her own and living on a disability pension. Both Ricky and Anne continue to support almost every appeal and they provide us with continued inspiration – I really hope to meet them one day when I’m down Melbourne way to thank them personally for all that they have done to support us.

There are some cute IGAB caps on the way for our winners…

In the short two and a bit years since we launched publicly we’ve helped to fund three wheelchair vehicles or vehicle modifications – and we are currently running Harry’s Appeal to get Harry back on the road too.

It’s a hard slog.  On average, $40,000 is needed each time. In the first three occasions each of the families had some major support behind them and that, combined with the efforts of our wonderful IGAB community, made sure that the appeal targets were raised in less than 2 months for each.

We know that funding for wheelchair accessible vehicles, or modifications to the existing family car to enable wheelchair access is a major issue for families across the country. There is no government funding at all for the purchase of the vehicle and only VIC offers any funding support for a vehicle modification – and that’s just $10,000, well short of what’s needed.

No charities or welfare organisation in Australia fund vehicles either.

There are so many families so desperate for help and we’d love to find a way of doing that but it would seem that our membership is just too small at present.

When we received Harry’s application late last year we knew that the family had a little support from their local community, but nowhere near the level enjoyed by the previous three families, and so we thought it was time to test how we might go with trying to fund the full cost of the vehicle ourselves through our normal appeal process.

Seven weeks after launching Harry’s Appeal to raise $55,000 we’ve raised just $12,500.  That’s a pretty clear indication to us that, for whatever reason, we are not in a position to successfully run appeals for such large amounts yet.

We are going to continue with Harry’s Appeal until it’s finished, and today sees the launch of Zac’s Appeal (for the last $5,000 needed for a vehicle modification) but we have regrettably decided that we can no longer accept applications for funding for wheelchair accessible vehicles or vehicle modifications.

We’ll be keeping the issue on our radar though. Once we think that our membership has grown to a level that might better support such appeals we’ll give it another shot but I’d imagine that to be at least 2 years away.

Harry’s Appeal is the first appeal we’ve ever had that hasn’t been completed within 6 weeks.

We’ve always had a policy for what would happen if we had a large, long-running appeal but we’ve never had to put it to work until now.

So here’s how it works:

In the first 6 weeks of any appeal (what we call Phase 1) we really get to work. We feature the appeal as far and wide as possible. It’s in our newsletter every week, it’s talked about on our Facebook Page all the time and we issue press releases about the story to all the local papers and major dailies too. In addition to that we contact business and service clubs and schools in the local child’s area and ask for their assistance in running a fundraiser or hosting a collection tin etc.

Now, we are a small charity – in fact up here in QLD there’s just me (Barb) and my husband Peter. And in VIC there’s just Liat for 20 hours a week.  Yep, three of us. That’s it. Between us we do everything. So to keep up the Phase 1 activities for every appeal would be pretty hard. That’s where Phase 2 comes in.

In Phase 2 the appeal stays open – we’ll never close an appeal until it’s finished – and the appeal page stays on our web site so that online donations can still be received for that child.  And we still work behind the scenes looking for every opportunity there is to raise the shortfall. We also keep updating everyone once a week or so on our Facebook page as a reminder that help is still needed.

The biggest difference between the two phases is feature spots in our weekly e-newsletter. During Phase 1, every appeal gets a feature spot in the newsletter but during Phase 2 they don’t.This is for a couple of reasons:

• everyone on the newsletter mailing list that was going to donate to any particular appeal would have done so within that 6 week period if they were going to
• we know from experience that most of our members donate to a given appeal just once and then they wait for the next child to help
• we know from experience that we get the best results when we give people just one or two stories at a time

What this means for Harry is that he’ll no longer have a feature spot in the newsletter, but everything else will stay the same.   We’re going to get Harry back on the road again. We won’t stop until we do.