Anyone who has ever driven a car in wintery Winnipeg knows that even the most immaculately plowed streets can be treacherous territory for vehicles. But the problem of winter mobility is especially pervasive for Winnipeg’s wheelchair users, who face a unique challenge in conquering the city’s snowy sidewalks.

Danielle Otto knows the situation well. The 24-year-old University of Winnipeg psychology grad, who has cerebral palsy, has been a wheelchair user since age five.  Her current motorized chair is not equipped to handle winter terrain. Otto has turned to crowdfunding website GoFundMe to raise the necessary $30,000 to pay for her ideal chair, the Permobil M400 Corpus 3G. At the time of this writing, 53 days into her campaign, Otto has already raised over $14,000 from 236 donors.

“It’s very heartwarming,” Otto says. “Furthermore, it’s extremely surprising. I was reluctant to do [the fundraiser] because I genuinely thought that nobody would care. It would be looked upon as, ‘This is a personal problem, I don’t need to have a hand in solving it.’ But the opposite has happened.”

Otto’s GoFundMe page goes into great detail about her difficulties with her current chair, including poor traction in snow and unreliable footrests, which have broken eight times in the past 18 months. She describes it as “a constant source of worry and frustration.” With hopes to return to to her studies this fall to pursue a law degree, reliable transportation is a necessity.

The Permobil chair that Otto hopes to buy is a higher-end model that accommodates upgrades like snow tires and improved suspension that lower-end manufacturers like her current chair don’t provide. Otto says these upgrades are necessary to traverse Winnipeg’s sidewalks in winter.

“I know the people who clear the sidewalks try as hard as they can,” Otto says. “But it’s difficult to create city-wide pristine scraped-to-the-pavement sidewalks. So it’s important to have a chair that at least has some capacity to deal with snow, because it’s inevitable in Winnipeg.”

“I’ve had some criticism, people saying that the real problem is the sidewalk cleaning. But that argument is sort of like telling someone that’s driving a car that they don’t need to use snow tires because we spend so much time plowing the roads. You still need your equipment to be appropriate to the conditions, regardless of what’s being done to make it easier.”

David Steen, CEO of Society for Manitobans with Disabilities (SMD), says that organizations try their best to ensure Manitobans are provided with reliable chairs, but it’s no easy task.

“SMD has worked with the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority for many years to expand the range and types of chairs available,” he says. “We’ve been fairly successful in doing so, but it’s impossible to get everything. The budget won’t allow it.

“SMD provides chairs to about 13,000 people and they come in all shapes and sizes. A chair is not a chair is not a chair. They’re all unique to that individual’s needs.”

Visit gofundme.com/htzq3o to help Danielle achieve her goal. 

Published in Volume 69, Number 17 of The Uniter (January 21, 2015)