Oliver hoping Shrewsbury fans will support bid for new chair
An 18-year-old disabled Shrewsbury Town Football Club supporter is appealing to fans of the team to get behind his appeal for a new powered wheelchair that will improve his career chances.
Oliver Burrows, who is studying Horticulture at Derwen College’s Oswestry campus, has bilateral cerebral palsy, a condition that affects his mobility and has left him a permanent wheelchair user.
Having supported The Shrews since a young boy, and having once led a team of celebrities out at the Montgomery Waters Meadows Stadium when he was a mascot for a charity football match in 2016, Oliver from Bicton Heath, in Shrewsbury, believes Town fans could be the difference in him hitting his fundraising target by the end of the year.
He is in need of a powered wheelchair that will enable him to access a woodlands area at college, so that he can study horticultural land maintenance.
“My current wheelchair can’t travel over the rough ground and gravel in the wooded expanse that I need to study in," he said.
"I also have work experience one day a week at the local cemetery but my wheelchair gets bogged down in the stones and I’m unable to move.
Heartbreaking
“I’m really worried that without a new wheelchair I may be unable to complete my course which will stop me from getting the job that I want in horticulture.”
Oliver’s father Mike says that having researched what powered wheelchair would best suit his son’s needs he realised that there was a significant financial barrier to buying the chair.
“The most suitable chair for Oliver costs £15,011, which is way beyond the family’s budget," said Mike.
“It’s heartbreaking knowing that we can’t afford to buy a wheelchair that would be so life changing for him.”
Oliver’s mother, Deborah, says the state-of-the-art wheelchair would change her son’s life.
She said: “The new wheelchair would not only allow Oliver to access the facilities at college it would also allow him to enjoy other activities, like family days out to the beach, and walking the dog with his 13-year-old brother Charlie.”
Mike and Deborah had resigned themselves to being unable to buy the powered wheelchair for Oliver, but then a friend told them about Caudwell Children, the national charity that provides practical and emotional support to disabled children and their families.
Support
And now, thanks to fundraising support from the charity, the pair have started a fundraising campaign to raise the money that they need to buy the wheelchair for their son.
“We’ve set up a Just Giving page for the family,” said Mark Bushell from Caudwell Children.
“We’ve also contacted other funding organisations, such as charitable foundations, rotary clubs and local businesses.
“Thanks to donations from these sources, and from friends of the family and members of the public, we’ve now raised nearly £8,000 for Oliver, but with the support of Shrewsbury Town fans we’re sure that we can get the balance that we need to get Oliver his chair by the end of the year.
“With gates of up to 8,000 attending home matches at the 9,875 capacity Montgomery Waters Meadow Stadium, it would only take a pound from every other supporter to raise a further £4,000.
“If we could do this Caudwell Children would be able to match fund the remaining amount, so I’m appealing for Shrews fans to support one of their own this Christmas, and make a donation on Oliver’s Just Giving page.”
To make a donation visit www.justgiving.com/chair4oliverb
