Dragancaor

When I discovered I no longer had any funding for my wheelchair (read more here), it was soul destroying. I felt that I’d wasted the $700 on the wheelchair scripting appointment. I don’t have a big income, & that’s close to what I earn in a month. I was devasted.

My close friends, many of whom are moderators for my Twitch channel & discord server, pointed out that my community members have been asking how they can help for years. That we’d been telling them it’s not something money would fix because I didn’t know what to order, as a wheelchair is specific to its user & I didn’t have a script.

But now I did.

We knew exactly what I needed to order, & had a fairly priced quote.

All that was missing was the money.

CookiesAreAKatherineFood told me that before I gave up, I had to give The Lair a chance to help.

So overnight on Thursday we came up with donation incentives & rewards, & I drew the type of wheelchair I was fitted for, & made infographics & images for social media.

On Friday night I went live on Twitch at my normal time & at 40 minutes into stream I started to explain the appointment & the fitting. The community had known it was booked but not when it was happening. I showed the Lair photographs of the proposed chair beside my current chair, answered questions, & explained how wheelchairs are designed around their specific user’s needs. When I mentioned the funding no longer existing, multiple viewers in chat asked how they could help – where they could donate & if they were allowed to tell other people & spread the word.

I shared the link to my KoFi profile, with the $14,000 AUD (~$9,000 USD) goal, & put infographics into my discord server breaking down the reasons for the cost.

I explained that because KoFi was instantly available in PayPal that I could enter into a payment plan with the wheelchair company as soon as we reached 20% of the goal, as that was the minimum deposit required to start the process, & it would be 10 weeks from ordering to receiving.

Immediately there was a $60 donation. “Let’s get you a new chair”

Then $50. “Wheels!!”

Then $100.

Then they broke me.

The next donation was $2,000. “Let me help get you started with this.”

While I was trying to remember how to breathe, & stop the tears, he realised that it had charged him in AUD not USD & the exchange rate meant he’d given less than he’d planned. So he followed up with another $2,000 AUD.

Later there was a $5,000 donation from the Fluffy Legion, a Twitch team who specialise in helping charities & good causes, that is run by a member of my community. They’ve also recently helped someone pay a very large vet bill for their assistance dog.

Donations ranged from $3 to $5,000 & all of them were just as incredible as each other. Every little bit added up to the whole… & suddenly the wheelchair I needed was 102% funded.

In less than 3 hours, the Lair had raised $14,000 AUD so that I could have a purpose-built wheelchair.

But the Lair weren’t done. As members in other timezones woke up & came to the stream, they also wanted to be able to contribute. Donations continued coming with messages that read, “Get that chair & a cake to celebrate” & “RGB wheeeeeeeels” & “Gotta start funding that jetpack now” & “Just a little bit extra (for some streamers or something) xx”

In the 48 hours since this, I have cried countless times from happiness, overwhelmed by the kindness. It is hard to believe that this chair is about to be a reality after such a long battle.

But we did it.

It’s happening.

& it’s all because of you.

Thank you!!

A list of the amazing & wonderful people who helped make this happen can be found here