Mobility Van for Glenn

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.