By Lindsey Cooke
Toronto, Ontario — February 1, 2019 –– Revolution Motors in Edmonton, AB wanted to give back to a family in need by providing free vehicle repairs.
This was the first time owner Joel Dohms decided to make this much-anticipated initiative to life. The repair facility encouraged their customers and the public to nominate a family they thought was struggling and would benefit from their vehicle being repaired.
The winner was the Manthey family. Owen and Laura Manthey have four children, one in which was diagnosed with a rare form of an autoimmune disorder that attacks his brain, further causing random seizures to occur.
“Rasmussen’s encephalitis is an autoimmune disease that causes the body to attack the brain causing brain atrophy, seizures, and other deficiencies. If left untreated it will cross to the other side of the brain and cause death,” Laura wrote on a GoFundMe page.
The only solution for their 14-year-old son’s diagnosis was to have the left side of his brain removed. The left side of his brain is his dominant side which means his cognitive language would be negatively affected. He will have to learn almost everything all over again.
“Daily travel, gas, parking costs, paying for childcare, and eating out has been added to our monthly costs. There are going to be many other costs associated with our son’s recovery including mobility equipment, shower bars, ramp, respite, we already upgraded our vehicle to meet his new requirements and being a family of six it’s already financially tight,” Laura wrote.
This really pulled on Dohm and his team’s heartstrings. “I have a 14-year-old and I couldn’t imagine what they had to go through,” Dohm said.
When Dohm called the Manthey family to let them know they were nominated and chosen for free repairs to their vehicle, they were shocked and so thankful.
The family brought in their 2007 Chevrolet Silverado 1500, and Dohm told Collision Repair, that it was in need for a lot of repairs.
“We looked more so at the safety side of things,” Dohm said.
The repairs were all possible thanks to a set budget and some support from their parts supplier Automotive Parts Distributors and DT Tire for donating new tires.
Dohm was unsure as to the exact cost of the repairs they performed but estimated that it was probably around $3,000 to $4,000.
With a large number of nominations that came through their website, Dohm said that they are planning on giving back to another family in March.
