At the end of last year the Pleasant Point Lions Club donated funds to MS South Canterbury to purchase two brand new lightweight transit wheelchairs.
The wheelchairs cost $689 each and weigh only 9.6kg, compared to 14kg for a standard manual wheelchair.
MS South Canterbury field worker Fiona Pierce said the donation would make a huge difference for her clients.
"A lot of them aren’t mobile, they want to get out and about and it’s really hard for them to, or they can walk a little bit but not very far.
"With these lovely transit chairs they can go out for meals and all sorts of things and because they are super light my volunteers can use them.
"You wouldn’t spend all day in a transit chair but definitely a few hours.
"What the chairs will do is open up the community again for some people."
She was very thankful to the Pleasant Point Lions Club for its donation.
"We were looking for funding for them and the Pleasant Point Lions sponsored and paid for the chairs fully.
"I’m presently working with 165 clients and the majority of them are under 50.
"A lot of people go on medications but there are a lot of people who can’t for one reason or another.
"A simple thing like a chair can completely change their lives, but they can’t always get funding for those sort of things or they get funding for something else.
"The wait at the moment for occupational therapists is long and that can hold people up too. If we can loan a chair for a while and it comes back, it can get them through.
"It makes a huge difference and we’re just thrilled the Lions have supported us, they’re just incredible and have done all sorts of things for my clients in the past."
Pleasant Point Lions Club president Tom Lambie said the club was pleased to have been able to lend a hand.
"We were approached by Russell [Grant] that does our projects and he came to the meeting with a proposal initially looking at just one chair.
"The membership said this is really good value for money and a fantastic organisation, something that’s really practical and going to be helpful for the community. So we said we’ll actually sponsor two chairs.
"It’s something that the members are really pleased to be involved in and it gives us a renewed resonator that it’s around service in the community, and if we can help people be more mobile and be part of the community, then we’re doing a good job."
Mrs Pierce said the chairs had be loaned out four times so far and the response had been very positive.
"You can pick them up with two fingers, so that’s been a huge positive because sometimes the carers aren’t that young. We’ve just been hearing that they’re really, really great.
"I think we will get many years out of them and they will be used by other groups when they need to borrow them, if they’re available.
"They can also be requested but I think they will literally be out all the time."
