Students and staff at Fairfield University came together last week to surprise a sophomore student with a new wheelchair equipped with communicative technology, meaning she could ditch her damaged unit, which was being held together with duct tape.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI was not expecting any of this,\u201d Meg Moore, 20, told the school\u2019s media department,<\/a> with the help of a communication device. \u201cMy mom and I were still trying to fight the insurance, and the old motorized wheelchair was falling apart.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sgt. Rob Didato, of the Connecticut university\u2019s public safety department, said he and others in his department noticed Moore struggling with the outdated chair, and decided to step in and help her.<\/p>\n
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\u201cA couple of guys just got together and said it\u2019s ridiculous that this girl can\u2019t get a new chair, I guess it was insurance issues, and they said, ‘We should start a campaign,\u2019\u201d Didato said in a shared video.<\/a><\/p>\n
Didato said that, in addition to Moore\u2019s classmates pitching in and helping to raise thousands in funds, two Fairfield alumni, Bryan LeClerc \u201984 and Robert Bercham \u201962, stepped in to help negotiate the price of the $60,000 chair with the manufacturer.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithout those two gentlemen getting involved, I don\u2019t know if we would be presenting Meg with the chair so soon,\u201d Didato said in the video.<\/a><\/p>\n
Moore, who lives with her mother in a handicap-accessible dorm on campus, is a Dean\u2019s List student and takes a regular class load. She also is a member of the school\u2019s Varsity Pep Band and is a Campus Ministry lector, The Fairfield Daily Voice reported.<\/a> Moore founded the school\u2019s Yes You Can Club, which connects students with cancer patients and disabled members of the community to form a support group.<\/p>\n
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LeClerc, who was able to negotiate the price of the chair down to $40,000, said it felt good to help Moore and bring the Fairfield community together.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s something we learned a long time ago from the Jesuits when we came here \u2013 helping others and doing good for other people, it\u2019s nice to do that for Meg,\u201d LeClerc said in the video.<\/a><\/p>\n
Moore was presented with the chair in a ceremony last Friday that included a blessing from one of the University\u2019s resident Jesuits. The safety department as well as many members of the school\u2019s staff were on hand.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Fairfield community came out of the woodwork at just the right time, and I could not be more grateful,\u201d Moore said in the video. \u201cThere are some really wonderful people here.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Students and staff at Fairfield University came together last week to surprise a sophomore student with a new wheelchair equipped with communicative technology, meaning she could ditch her damaged unit, which was being held together with duct tape.\u00a0 \u201cI was not expecting any of this,\u201d Meg Moore, 20, told the school\u2019s media department, with the Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-167777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167777\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}