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Mobility Van for Glenn

  • Glenn’s Journey - Update #4!

      26 January 2020
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    Hello Team Glenn Supporters!

    Happy New Year to you all. We hope you had a wonderful Christmas & New Years, welcome to 2020!

    We are pleased to confirm that we have purchased the van itself!

    It is presently parked up, with a drive here and there to keep it running, as it has not yet been modified. Yes, it has a personalised plate - this was originally my Dad’s plate, he kindly gave us the plate for the van. It is an honour to have one of the family names as our number plate!

    We are still presently fundraising for the modifications to the van. As we mentioned in our last update:

    “Enable has approved the modification application with the maximum of $12165 (incl. GST) being granted, this will cover just over half of the modification cost - our approximate cost for modifications being around the $22k mark - this includes fit-out, rear hoist for wheelchair, seating, mounting points, tracks for wheelchair, certification etc.” (update #3)

    So we’re still looking at $10,000 (or just under!) to get the van modified so we can safely transport Glenn. At 4.5 years old, he could easily pass for a 6-7 year old. To be honest there’s not a lot of size difference between him and his 7 year old sister - and she’s reasonably tall as well!

    As it is Summer we have been enjoying the warmer weather, and attending Speedway meetings, some of you will know us from Speedway - Daniel writes articles for a well known Speedway magazine, and I run the NZ Stockcar Crazy Photography page on Facebook (prior to this, I ran a website with a similar name - NZ Stockcar Crazy, which I started almost 20 years ago!).

    Both of our kids enjoy Speedway, Glenn absolutely LOVES it, we love our home track of Rotorua.

    We drew the Pounamu fundraiser just before Christmas at the Rotorua Police Station. We did a “go live” via Glenn’s Journey Facebook page to announce the winners as they were drawn. Thank you to everyone who supported this fundraiser.

    We have been working on therapy with Glenn, and he has started taking steps using a walking frame (supported by me). We’re still a long way off walking independently, however this is amazing progress! Glenn will always have a wheelchair as backup however.

    Jase and the Team from The Pits Media (a well known Speedway streaming service) have come on board to assist with fundraising for Glenn. They are currently running an auction for a The Pits Media shirt, which has been autographed by all the finalists for the World 240 Champs held in Rotorua this weekend. What an amazing meeting it was, the racing was great, we caught up with friends and met new people as well!

    Here is the link to the The Pits Media Auction: https://www.facebook.com/thepitstv/videos/502801347327762/

    Thank you to Jase & The Pits Media for your support, we are truly humbled, and appreciate it so much.

    We will have some more small fundraisers coming up soon as well.

    Thank you so much for your ongoing support, we really appreciate it!

    Regards,

    Yaz & the Dolbel-Neville Family.

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  • Glenn's Journey - Update #3

      2 December 2019
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    Glenn’s Journey - Update #3!

    Hello Team Glenn supporters!

    Hope you are all well! Happy December - it’s nearly Christmas!

    We’ve been pretty busy as of late with appointments and an overnight hospital stay for Glenn after he had an accident which resulted in a concussion - super scary times for us, however he is back to his usual happy self :) He is super excited now that the Speedway season has kicked off, he absolutely loves stockcars!!

    Glenn has also recently received his communication device as well which is helping him so much with his vocabulary development. His wheelchair review has been done - until his next growth spurt! Therapy is going well and he has his Orthotics review coming up. Glenn had his measurements done recently at one of his appointments - 99th percentile for height and weight. A very, very tall 4 and a half year old!

    Some good news, we are at the point where we are finalising the purchase of the van - the van itself that is. This doesn’t include the modification side of things. The case being is we are able to get the van, but it will need to be parked up until the modifications are able to be completed. Our OT has been a brilliant help with the process thus far!

    Enable has approved the modification application with the maximum of $12165 (incl. GST) being granted, this will cover just over half of the modification cost - our approximate cost for modifications being around the $22k mark - this includes fit-out, rear hoist for wheelchair, seating, mounting points, tracks for wheelchair, certification etc.

    So basically it’s approx $10,000 until our goal. We’re really keen to get the van sorted ASAP.

    The fundraising continues - we still have the Give A Little going, along with the Pounamu Fundraiser - we’re keen to finalise this fundraiser before Christmas if possible!

    We’re also open to fundraising suggestions so if you have an idea, do get in touch!

    Thank you to everyone for your support so far, it is truly appreciated <3

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  • Glenn's Journey - Update #2!

      25 August 2019
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    Hello Team Glenn Supporters!

    Hope you are all well, spring is nearly here! We’re sorry for the lack of updates, however not a lot has been happening until very recently, just trying to get through the chilly winter months. It’s been a rough winter health-wise for young Glenn, however he is presently doing well.

    As I write this update, we’re sitting at just over $4,000 on our Give A Little page, thank you so very much to every one who has contributed and/or shared our link, we truly appreciate it!

    Apart from the Give A Little page, we also have a Pounamu fundraiser happening, a big thanks to Melissa Diedrichs of Ridyl Jade - Hokitika (and friends) for making this happen. More details are on the Facebook page, or you can contact me directly to find out more!

    So, “where are you at?” I hear you ask! Here starts the news!

    As well as our Lotteries grant, we have also been successful in obtaining an Equipment Grant from the Wilson Trust to put towards purchasing the van. Thank you so much to the Wilson Trust for granting this to Glenn.

    We have also been conditionally approved for another grant towards the purchase, however this is conditional depending on the fundraising side of things, which we are still working on.

    Branch of Hope Aotearoa in Christchurch are doing some fundraising for Glenn as well, which we appreciate.

    We also applied to the Mazda Foundation for consideration of a grant however this application was declined.

    As most of you know, we had a potential van lined up in Auckland. Recently I found out this van has been sold. We had an agreement with the dealership that we’d keep in touch with each other as to how things were going, and that if the dealership was to sell the van they’d contact us first. Unfortunately no correspondence was received relating to the sale, so we missed out. Oh dear!

    However, all is not lost. Dust myself off and try again, I found a silver lining - in the form of another van right here in the Bay of Plenty! I made contact with the dealer, we have viewed the vehicle, it meets the requirements of what we are looking for, along with better specs and the price difference being minor. We are committed to this vehicle so we have put a deposit on it - massive thanks to our supporters that helped for this to happen.

    We have a new Occupational Therapist for the van process! Our OT will help guide us through the process - as you can probably imagine the whole process can be quite daunting! Presently our OT is following up the referral to Enable that was made for the vehicle modifications, and then we go from there - meetings and continuing on with the required steps to make this happen for our Glenn. All going to plan, Enable will fund part of the modifications with us having to fund the rest. We are confident that the van we have found will meet the criteria for modification.

    Modifications will more than likely include a rear hoist, seats, certification just to name a few things (No doubt I’m missing a few things!). It’s a process but it will all be worth it in the long run.

    Thank you all so much for your continued support, we hope we can update you again soon with more news! Please keep sharing our link, we truly appreciate it. We are still a few thousand short!

    Photo of the van included with this update for a visual!

    Kind Regards, Yaz on behalf of Glenn and the rest of the Dolbel-Neville Family.

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  • Glenn's Journey - Fundraising Update #1!

      16 June 2019
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    Today, 16th June marks 4 years since we were given Glenn's primary diagnosis of Congenital Myotonic Dystrophy, including being given the worst case scenario which was rather grim. I wouldn't wish the way we were given the diagnosis on anybody, however that's another story which I have covered elsewhere on Glenn's Facebook page in a note.

    4 years later however, and Glenn is doing very well, all things considered. As Glenn is rather large for his age (height and weight wise) and it is getting harder to get him in and out of the car we are presently fundraising for a van.

    We started our Give A Little just over a month ago and are overwhelmed with the support we have received thus far through shares and donations, we are almost at $2,000! Thank you to each and every one of you who have shared and/or donated, it is much appreciated. We are still quite a way off from what we need, so please keep sharing! We have applied for a couple of other grants too however will not know the outcome for a month or two. Fingers crossed!

    The other news is that we will be launching a couple of raffles starting this weekend (with more planned), some nationwide ones, and one for our friends in Christchurch through a lovely charity down there who have hopped on board to help, we truly appreciate it! More details to follow, watch this space! :)

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