Gift lifts a truechampion team

THE announcement hasn’t been made but Young Adult Disabled Association members already feel like winners.

YADA co-ordinator Buffy McDonald and client Julie Thurlow

THE announcement hasn’t been made but Young Adult Disabled Association members already feel like winners.

The Liverpool group, who entered the Champions of the West grants campaign in the hope of winning $10,000 for a new forklift, received a brand new one from media magnate Kerry Stokes yesterday.

The group hope their ­rewards will be doubled at ­tonight’s Champions of the West gala dinner where the 13 category winners will be ­announced. They are finalists in the environment category and in the running to win a further $10,000.

But regardless of who takes out the environment category tonight, the association says the gift from Mr Stokes is an enormous win for them.

“If I saw him I’d shake his hand and kiss his feet,” Roger Lovell, a volunteer driver at YADA said. “Those acts of kindness are the sort of things more people should do, the country would be a lot better off if they did.

“I’ll probably never meet him, but if I did, I’d like to thank him face to face and tell him the difference his generous gift will make to our group.”

The organisation, which aids disabled youth and young adults, raises most of their funds sorting recycling and selling second hand goods such as furniture, clothes, crockery and knock knacks in three makeshift ­locations in Liverpool and Fairfield.

Mr Lovell has volunteered with the organisation for seven years and drives young disabled clients to social ­activities in the area twice a week. He said the forklift is ­instrumental in their fundraising efforts.

“We’d be dead in the water without a forklift,” Mr Lovell said. “Our old forklift died about a year ago and we’ve been hiring one ever since.

‘‘This new one will be brilliant, it will certainly be a popular addition to help us with our work.”

While the costs for the new forklift have already been met, Mr Lovell said there are many other ways the group can use the $10,000 if they win in their category tonight.

“Everything we have is second hand or donated,” he said.

“We could do with new trucks to transport the second hand products we take out to sell at our stores and we could do with a new bus to take our young disabled clients out in. There’s no shortage of needs around here.’’

The Liverpool charity ­organisation went public with their need for a new forklift during the Champions of the West grants campaign