Vancouver Foundation is proud to support a new program by Disability Alliance BC (DABC) that aims to help put money back in the pockets of 20,000 British Columbians with Disabilities. The launch of Tax Assistance and Information for People with Disabilities DABC (Tax AID DABC) will help people with disabilities file income taxes free of charge.
With Braeden, who is almost three, seven-year-old Jacob, and their big brother, eight-year-old Matthew, parents Jeanne and Dan Moy don’t get much time to sit and relax.
Playing on his family’s rotten, splintery deck was a problem for Matteus Preusse, who has spina bifida, and a nightmare for his mother, Celia. His lower legs are paralyzed, and in those areas, he can’t feel his skin – but that didn’t stop the enthusiastic little guy from wanting to play outside like his older sister.
The King family in Chilliwack has 10 children from one to twenty-one years old, with different disabilities and abilities. Some are adopted, some are foster children and some are biological. And four of them were in wheelchairs that didn’t fit in the family bathroom.
The family turned to Giving in Action, a Society that was set up by Vancouver Foundation with a gift from the BC Government.
Giving in Action gave them a grant to make the bathroom accessible to all their kids, and to purchase a new wheelchair-friendly vehicle.
“Everyone that looks after her falls in love with her. They just get hooked. We call it the “Briana fix”—they all want more, more, more,” Bernie Shephard, laughing with his wife Marilyn.
Some people might think the Shephards don’t have much to laugh about. While their 20-year-old granddaughter Briana is indeed adorable, with angelic wide-set eyes, tightly curled hair and an irrepressible grin, she was also born profoundly disabled. She’s deaf, blind, in a wheelchair and completely dependant on others to meet every physical need.
