Hi everyone thanks for taking the time to reply, my wheelchair is a long story. I was struggling with My NHS chair after my son was born as it didnt allow me to do things I needed to. I Managed to get a charity to pay for a very special chair that gives me the independance I need. It was 20 thousand at the time. When we got the chair we were told all repairs would be covered for the life time of the chair. But when resesson hit in the US the company changed their mind and now all repairs and parts have to be paid for. (the chair is americian) Then my chair broke just after my daughter was born about 18 mouth ago when I needed it the most. We asked people to help us fund raise as we did not have the 1500 needed to fix it. We got a real shock at peoples negative attitudes and lack of understanding. People seem to think that someone like me is given every thing that I need by the system and didnt seem to understand why we were asking for help. They did not understand how important my chair is to the whole families life (especially with a new born) My chair completely changed the whole families life for the better and when it was broke it was a desaster for us. We managed to borrow the money to fix it and we are struggling to pay it back.
Some friends set up the fund for my chair as we realised it would be an ongoing problem because as the chair gets older it needs more repair and will need replacing some time in the future but in the mean time we are faced with raising repair costs. We did look at just giving but they only let you register if your a registered charity we are not (we dont no how to do that, think you have to know you can raise at lease 5 thousand a year which we cant) At the moment there is only really me and my husband trying to sort this out people are not coming together and giving us the help we need. I dont think they get how important and special my chair is to all the family because to most people all wheelchairs are the same. I am trying to do the website so people can see I am trying to do what I can for the whole family to keep my chair going. We have set up a facebook group to try and get the fundraising support we need but no one seems to want to help and I just end up feeling bad for trying to get people to care enough to help us. The facebook group is friends of the wheelchair maintenance fund if any want to join or help us. Ive set up a facebook page for the website and a twitter page for the fund but I dont really know what to put on them I just seem to repeat the same things. I am also really stuggling to do it cause of my health problems plus the whole thing is depressing me as every effort I have made to help my family and myself have just failed. The last thing I want is people feeling sorry for me but I also no when I need help with a problem and I cant give up til I find a solution is it is to important to the whole family as we know how much we all struggled when my chair was not working at all.
All the info and links to the different pages I have done in my fundraising effort are on my website www.handmadecardsucantreasure.co.uk any other suggestions welcome. hope I havent woffled on to much but it might help people understand abit better as so far in my fundraising effort I have faced alot of negativity and lack of understanding. Thanks again