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Recreational therapist Ken Rybchuk, left, lifts Mike
Ridgeway into a newly donated recreational therapy
van from Prairie Harley-Davidson in front of the
Wascana Rehabilitation Centre.
Photograph by: Don Healy, Regina Leader-Post
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Residents at the Wascana Rehabilitation Centre (WRC) got some new wheels on Tuesday afternoon.
Prairie Harley-Davidson of Regina donated a new bus for recreational therapy to the WRC after working all year to raise the funds. The residents had been without a bus since December, when the old one was decommissioned for safety reasons.
The new one will allow a group of 120 residents to participate in community excursions.
"Nobody can understand what it means to us. To have a bus where we can take more than two people is incredible," said Lynne Rieben, the president of the resident council at the WRC.
"We have waited so long for something like this to happen and the residents are ecstatic."
Rieben said the bus can hold about seven people - five for residents and two for attendants. It will take them to destinations such as shopping malls, restaurants, Regina Symphony Orchestra performances, fishing and special events like the new Titanic exhibit at the Science Centre.
"People in the community know that we're not just in here sitting around wasting our years," she said. "Everything we can get out and see now . It's something that we couldn't have done or some of us only dreamed about, but now we've got the vehicle to use it with."
Robb Hertzog, co-owner of Prairie Harley-Davidson, said the company got involved several months ago, because one of the owners has been a WRC resident for two years, so management decided to help raise money for a new bus that was "desperately needed."
"We're actually giving a bus that will give a lot of freedom to a lot of people here at Wascana," said Hertzog. "It's going to give them a lot more opportunity to go places when they want to, whenever they want to."
The bus cost $80,000 and various partners, such as Harley-Davidson, Hospitals of Regina and Sheer Escapes all have given their support.
Hertzog said the company has raised money through T-shirt sales, a 75th anniversary gala at the Hotel Saskatchewan on Nov. 19 and a motorcycle raffle priced at $75 a ticket. He estimated Prairie Harley-Davidson has raised about $40,000 so far.
"It's phenomenal, the support that you get once people find out what it's for," he said.
"That's what's so wonderful about this city, too. Everybody does get together when they do find out what you're raising funds for."
Rieben said she was very impressed with everyone who was on board with getting the new bus to the residents.
"We reap the benefits, but they are such a good group. The Harley-Davidson guys we just can't say enough about and the rec therapy (staff) just go out of their way to get us where we want to go," she said. "If it takes a couple of trips, so be it."
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