By Cam Lucadou-Wells
A DESPERATELY needed $15,000 wheelchair was seemingly out of reach for 10-year-old Indi Marinucci.
That was until a wellspring of ‘people power’ in Berwick Springs estate came to the rescue.
Unable to receive the funds through disability services, her single mother Antonella Marinucci seemed to have run out of options.
“She’d been crying for a chair. I was going to bed just thinking how will we do this,” Ms Marinucci said.
“I was embarrassed and felt I was not supporting my own children.”
Her friends at a Berwick Springs running club suggested she “put it out there” and helped her organise a 5-kilometre fund-raising event ‘Run For Indi’.
Event T-shirts and a fetching slogan “We run so Indi can roll” were designed, but an overwhelming $17,000 response on a crowdfunding site made the event redundant.
Instead, the 12 November event was transformed into a celebration as Indi was presented with her new chair.
It has been a two-year wait for the upgrade, Ms Marinucci said.
Indi, afflicted by cerebral palsy, had outgrown her previous dilapidated chair.
Surgeons had postponed an operation to correct Indi’s feet until she had a correctly sized chair. That is now back on track.
Ms Marinucci said it broke her heart to see Indi’s legs “hanging” uncomfortably over the chair’s footrest. Gaffer tape was being used to hold Indi’s feet off to the side.
Indi’s neck and back posture was also out of kilter.
“Now her head is up. Her legs are straight,” Ms Marinucci said.
“I just feel a release.”
