Family fundraising following vehicular accident

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This article was published 04/08/2020 (2205 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A family is fundraising for living expenses following a vehicular accident that left two young girls injured.

On Feb. 23 of this year, sisters Amaya and Ayva Dawson were involved in a head-on collision that left Amaya, now eight years old, partially paralyzed, and Ayva, 6, with minor injuries.

Ayva has since recovered from her injuries, but Amaya suffered a broken pelvis and severe damage to her spinal cord, leaving her with paraplegia. She has physical therapy between four and six hours per day and uses an electric wheelchair to move around.

The girls’ father, Fabien Javel, and his partner, Katelyn Cabral, who live together in North Kildonan, started the Amaya and Ayva Fund online to raise money for living expenses.

Though Autopac provided some compensation to the girls’ primary household, Javel said he and Cabral have been left to their own devices.

Javel, 32, and Cabral, 24, moved from an upper-level apartment suite to the ground floor to improve access to the home, where Amaya and Ayva stay periodically. But the couple have their sights set on buying a wheelchair-accessible house in the future.

“But our goal is to buy a house and that’s kind of what the fundraising comes down,” Cabral said.

Or, they said, the money will be used to renovate their current residence to make it more accessible.

Cabral’s mother, Stephanie Hawkes, a Scotia Heights resident, has been organizing many of the fundraising initiatives, such as a yard sale and community barbecue.

“The amount of support that we’ve received from the people in the community who came out to it … it was overwhelming,” Hawkes said.

Hawkes is also co-ordinating tab donations on behalf of the family. They’ve collected a couple hundred thousand so far, Javel said.

It takes around 14 million tabs to make a $6,000 wheelchair, according to a 2018 Winnipeg Free Press article about Tabs for Wheelchairs, a fundraising initiative that collects tabs.

“We’re collecting the tabs to donate on behalf of Amaya — like for Amaya to donate to other kids that might not have the same opportunity that she does and might have more of a difficult time getting a wheelchair,” Cabral said.

For more information about the family’s fundraising efforts, visit The Amaya and Ayva Fund on Facebook. To donate tabs, contact Hawkes at 204-996-5228.