For the past three years, Langford’s City Wide Scooters has teamed up with Our Place Society to maintain and provide mobility scooters for Victoria’s homeless population.
“We want them to embrace ownership one step at a time and if we can turn the worm on one individual, mission accomplished,” says City Wide Scooter’s Art Bamford.
This year, 14 power chairs and scooters were given to community members, allowing for some much-needed freedom of mobility.
“Walking with a walker every day can be very challenging physically, emotionally and mentally,” says Norman, one of the scooter recipients. “So that [the scooter] is more safe for me and I’ll be able to enjoy my life a bit better.”
The giving doesn’t stop with just the scooter. Once a month, City Wide checks the scooter’s batteries, tires and fixes any that need repairing.
Ron Daoust, an outreach worker with Our Place Society, says the program has been a success.
“It’s been such a success, I don’t even know the number we’re at but I think it’s over 40 we’ve given away,” says Daoust. “The difference that it makes in a person’s life that is challenged by their surroundings, it’s such a sense of freedom for them.”
The Upside was also happy to help, hosting a live fundraiser for the battery packs necessary to keep the scooters going.
“We raised just short of $9,600,” says Bamford. “If it wasn’t for CHEK and the boys [Ed & Jeff] I don’t know where we’d be right now.
It was a group effort to change lives for the better.
Cole Sorenson
