Hallie Ganderton isn’t like most children.Hallie Ganderton isn’t like most children. While many other seven-year-old girls are hoping for new toys, gadgets, or clothes, Hallie has a much bigger dream: She wants to take her power wheelchair with her anywhere she goes.
While other seven-year-old girls are hoping for new toys, gadgets, or clothes, Hallie Ganderton has a much bigger dream: She wants to take her power wheelchair with her anywhere she goes.
Hallie has cerebral palsy, and uses her trackball-operated wheelchair to get around. Her disorder affects every aspect of her life — from her mobility, to her speech, to her sight.
“She needs around-the-clock care,” said Hallie’s mother, Heather Ganderton. “She has difficulty with the most basic things, like using her hands, bathing, toileting, and talking.”
Lindsay Jones, who has been Hallie’s respite worker for three years, entered Hallie in a contest to win a wheelchair-accessible van. The custom modifications for such a vehicle would normally cost about $20,000, plus the cost of the van itself.
The contest, organized by the National Mobility Equipment Dealers Association, awards a wheelchair accessible van to the three families/ individuals in Canada or the United States who accumulate the most votes on the website.
Jones said the contest is in celebration of May being National Mobility Awareness Month, and is also based on being a hero, and she says Hallie is just that.
“She works so hard, she’s so intelligent, she always challenges herself and always wants to succeed,” Jones said. “And she does it all with the biggest smile on her face.”
Her power wheelchair stays at John McGivney Children’s Center, where Hallie is a Grade 2 student, and her family uses a manual wheelchair to move her at home. But Heather said Hallie is getting bigger, and it’s getting harder to constantly switch her from chair to chair.
Hallie said she could “be a superstar” if she won the van, because she could bring her power wheelchair anywhere she goes and be more “independent.”
Even though Hallie needs a lot of help, said Jones, she is constantly inspired by the determination she sees in the young girl.
“Being with a respite is usually a time for fun, a time to take a break,” she said. “But Hallie always wants to work on her schoolwork, or her math, or her occupational therapy.”
At birth, Hallie suffered a severe brain injury, and her heart stopped. Doctors said she might not make it, and if she did, she would be blind, unable to crawl or use a walker, and would be reliant on a feeding tube. But Hallie has always loved a challenge.
Not only did Hallie survive, she also regained full sight through light therapy, learned to use a walker at age two, learned to spoon-feed herself, and remains an optimistic and happy young girl who continues to inspire her family and friends.
“She doesn’t let me go easy on her, she likes to be challenged,” Jones said. “If I tell her she can’t do something, she will work even harder just to prove me wrong. She’s grinning ear to ear just hearing me say that, because she knows it’s true.”
Heather Ganderton is a stay-at-home mother of three, while Hallie’s father Shane works in IT. In addition to seven-year-old Hallie, Heather has two sons — nine-year-old Parker and 11-year-old Carter.
She says Hallie’s brothers have rallied to support her in this contest, getting their school behind them as well.
“Parker is even doing announcements at school,” Heather said. “They both see beyond her disabilities, they include her in their games.”
But it hasn’t been easy. Jones said though she loves working with Hallie, it’s sometimes difficult to watch the young girl’s daily struggles.
“It’s hard to hear her say things like it’s her dream to walk,” Jones said. “But she doesn’t cry or ask why she is this way, she knows what her condition is and accepts it.”
“She’s made me realize that in life there’s obstacles, but everyone can overcome them.”
Heather said the van would be an incredible blessing for her family, and is asking the community to vote for Hallie every day until the contest closes on May 10.
Jones said hearing the struggles of Hallie’s family brings a tear to the eye, but seeing their progression and accomplishments is inspiring.
“I really do believe her progress was not a miracle,” she said. “She got where she is today because of her incredible hard work and her family’s hard work.”