A Wallaceburg woman has a new, reliable vehicle for her daily commute.
Donna Lashmore is the first recipients of the United Way’s ‘Rebuilding Wheels Rebuilding Lives’ campaign.
Donna says the new-to-her 2011 Mazda 3 will help with her drive to work at the YMCA in Chatham.
“It brings down the stress level quite a bit in my world, when you’re always wondering if you’re going to get to work and if you don’t get to work, you don’t get paid,” Lashmore says. “A couple of years ago I had a heart attack and it was completely stress related, so this is a huge change for me, it’s one less thing to worry about.”
Lashmore will be giving her current car to her son, a recent University of Windsor grad who’s been using public transportation as he tries to find a job.
The Rebuilding Wheels Rebuilding Lives program is a partnership between the United Way and a number of other local agencies, along with the Lally auto group, and John McGregor Secondary School whose auto shop students worked on refurbishing the car.
UWOCK CEO Steve Pratt says it’s just the second of its kind in Canada, patterned after a similar campaign in Windsor.
“We know there are lots of people that would qualify for the program, we would love to be able to go out and help everybody all at one time,” Pratt says. “We’re happy that today we were able to help one person take a major step forward.”
Pratt would like to see the program expand to a pace of a couple of cars a year.
