Two police officers in North Carolina are helping provide a wheelchair accessible van to a family with a severely disabled little girl in Michigan.
Nine-year-old Emmri Tullis was born with cytomegalovirus (CMV), a virus related to those that caused chickenpox, herpes simplex, and mononucleosis, according to the Battle Creek Enquirer.
Emmri can only control her facial expressions and also has epilepsy, microcephaly, mild hearing loss, minoscoliousis, and hips that are severely out of socket, said her mom, Chelsey Banker.
Their family has been looking for an affordable standard minivan they hoped to make wheel-chair accessible to help improve Emmri’s quality of life after she outgrew her five-point harness car seat.
When Chelsey learned of a fundraiser and contest called “You Say Car” promoted by police officers and TikTok personalities Kevin Eudy of the Wingate Police Department and Josh Scales, a Forsyth County officer, she entered and was chosen along with another family.
“Through the competition, Chelsey said they will receive $18,500 towards a new vehicle,” the Enquirer article noted.
Although the amount was short several thousand dollars, a GoFundMe page set up for the minivan had raised nearly $12,000 of its $7,500 goal as of Sunday.
“You GUYS! We reached our goal, and then some, and we are absolutely blown away. We want to thank every single one of you who have donated, shared, and made this all possible for us,” Chelsey wrote on the page Friday.
She said her daughter had a huge support system and that the van would be a big blessing for their family.
“This is something that is going to dramatically change her quality of life. This is going to make whatever time she has left here less painful and more enjoyable and memories for her and her brother to make before it’s her time to go,” she commented.
When Eudy and Scales started their social media pages to show a different side of law enforcement, they had no idea it would become a way to help others.
“I was praying about it, what we can do about it to promote real change. You Say Car … I wasn’t expecting it to get as big of a response as it did,” Eudy explained.