The doors on the white van swung open at the dealership, providing the first look in the search for a vehicle that will change a family’s life.
Constantine Salce – who has used a wheelchair for most of his 11 years because of a disease called spinal muscular atrophy – needs a different mode of transportation: a van with a lift to raise him while he sits in his chair, allowing him to simply wheel into place inside.
Donations from a GoFundMe page defrayed the cost and allowed the Salces, who live in Hopkinton, to go shopping Friday. More than 200 people donated more than $17,000, and a local man named Scott Metzger sealed the deal at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve, contributing more than $1,000 to get them to their goal.
Currently, Constantine’s mother, Luciante, must lift her son, who weighs 75 pounds, into the van and onto a seat. Then Luciante rolls the 350-pound wheelchair up a cranky, clanky metal plank that unfolds in sections and must be attached to the back of the van.
Dominic Salce, a corrections officer at the state prison, is a big guy, but with severe back issues, he can’t help his wife get Constantine ready for travel.
The procedure is painful, both physically and emotionally for both mother and son, so Luciante and Dominic reached out to the media for help.
The result was an avalanche of goodwill, as more than $17,817 had been contributed by press time, donated by 211 people in 21 days. The goal was $15,000, which most likely will be enough for a used van, with the lift added later. The Salces will give what they have.
And this is a lift that’s two-fold: a platform that methodically and mechanically moves upward thanks to technology, and an injection of hope and joy thanks to charitable individuals.
“Very grateful,” said Constantine, who was in the dealer’s parking lot Friday on a crisp, sunny day.
“This has been an ongoing battle for our family,” Dominic said. “We’ve been trying to reach out to sources for a whole 10 years.
“We’re asking for some help and the people of New Hampshire have helped us out exponentially,” Dominic continued. “When you see something bad in the world, I tell my children that you have to look at things that are good.”
The Salces have been fundraising for years. Luciante, in fact, gathered sponsors and competed in her first marathon – the Manchester City Marathon – eight years ago, trying to help the medical community find a cure for a disease that stops neural impulses from traveling to muscles.
Without muscle contraction, Constantine’s legs, devoid of any power, simply dangle, and he leans his elbows on the wheelchair armrests, able to move his forearms and hands only.
His mind is fine, however, but in an ironic twist, that has actually worked against the Salces’s efforts to secure funding to meet the cost of a suitable van. More money for the lift would be available from an agency like Community Bridges, but only if Constantine had physical and mental disabilities.
Other services have contributed, but money for this price tag – about $20,000 for a used van before the lift is installed, much more for something new – was nowhere to be found.
The state representatives in Hopkinton – Mel Myler and David Luneau – gave sympathetic ears to Luciante over coffee, but neither knew what to do, and both suggested that legislation – always wrapped in red tape – might be the only way to go.
Luciante and Dominic wrote to Rep. Annie Kuster but got nowhere, fueling a different path to not only meet their own needs, but those of families in the future whose children suffer from SMA.
Advertising on Facebook and GoFundMe brought the usual mean-spirited responses.
“They said things should be given to them too,” Dominic said. “You’d hear, ‘Hey, I need a new snowplow; will the state pay for that?’ People said no freebies.”
Those people, however, were in the minority.
“The people of New Hampshire have come through for us,” Dominic continued. “I’ve never seen people show this amount of care. Just seeing us at the store and saying, ‘I believe in you and you will make a difference in the state.’ ”
Metzger of Hopkinton, who owns a concrete products firm, read about the plight of Constantine in the Monitor last weekend. Then he looked at his own life and his own family.
He donated $1,530, planning it so his money would reach its target at the same time as the ball in Times Square landed. His strange dollar figure moved the needle on the family’s GFM page to $15,000 on the nose.
“This is a normal, hard-working family that needs one lump sum to solve a problem that has been plaguing them for years,” Metzger said. “And I was moved by people donating $5, $9, $10, and I knew that was all they could afford, so I decided at midnight to do whatever they needed to reach their goal.”
And there was more than just money offered. Sweat was offered as well.
From Rick DeFelice, who works for Newport Construction. “I wanted to help with the lift,” DeFelice said. “I was going to do it for them, figure out where we had to get it done and make sure they had help.”
And from Jeff Patten of Warner, who works at an auto body shop. “A guy I work with said if we can find a lift we will install it free of charge,” Patten said. “I found one in Maine.”
Others wrote emails with information on where to buy a used van with the lift already installed.
The Salces knew ahead of time that the white van they saw Friday was not the right fit, mainly because the roof was too low. They bought a used van with a lift a while back, but the bottom rotted away after just one year.
They figure a used van without the lift will be more affordable, then perhaps they can have the lift added later.
“There are so many different options and things to consider,” Luciante said. “I just want to make sure we get something that will last and be safe so we don’t ever have to do this again.”
Constantine believes the process won’t take as long as his mother thinks.
“This one is not the right one,” he said. “But I think the next one will be right.”
(Ray Duckler can be reached at 369-3304, rduckler@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @RayDuckler.)