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Crawfordsville Kiwanis Club Fundraising for Good Cause
Kyson Shidler (pictured), a three and 1/2 year old from Crawfordsville, was born with spina bifida. The Kiwanis are asking the community for their help in paying for a special trike for him.
By Joe LaRue
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The Crawfordsville Kiwanis Club is offering to match any donations to the club in order to help purchase and pay for a special trike for a three-year old Crawfordsville boy named Kyson Shidler.
Kyson was born with spina bifida, a birth defect where the spine and spinal cord don’t form properly. Roughly 1 in 2500 newborns globally are born with the condition.
Due to the spina bifida, as well as its related medical complications, Kyson cannot walk without the help of medical equipment. But, like little boys and girls everywhere, Kyson wants to be able to ride a bicycle. In order to have that opportunity, Kyson needs a special kind of trike that is both hand and foot powered. However, these are difficult to find and expensive to buy.
That is where the Crawfordsville Kiwanis Club came in.
Gary Behling, Lieutenant Governor of the Sycamore South Division of the Kiwanis Club and a member of the Crawfordsville Kiwanis, spoke about his search for the trike, saying, “There’s only one manufacturer of these kinds of bike that I’ve found. I went all over, Canada and out west.” Given how hard they are to find, Behling said, “It will take some time for the bike to get here. We just put the order in today (April 13) and they said it probably won’t arrive until September or October.”
But in the meantime, Behling said, the Crawfordsville Kiwanis want to keep fundraising. “We’re going to fundraise for a while because we are looking to keep doing it not just for Kyson, but for anyone,” he said. “We want to provide this opportunity, to get these bikes, for any kid with disabilities.”
In order to help maximize their fundraising, the Kiwanis have offered to match any community donations. Those interested in donating can mail donations to the Crawfordsville Kiwanis Club, PO Box 611, Crawfordsville, IN 47933. Checks should be made out to Crawfordsville Kiwanis.
It is the power of community that helps do amazing things for those less fortunate among us, and the Kiwanis are always leading in that regard. As The Paper of Montgomery County publisher Tim Timmons said in his weekly column this past Wednesday – ain’t Montgomery County great!
