DEMAND Helps 4-Year Old Summer

‘Tricycle! Tricycle! I want to ride my Tricycle!’ DEMAND and The Rieves Foundation help give four year old Summer new found freedom by designing and building a unique tricycle.

Most people can remember learning to ride a bicycle and perhaps choosing from the endless styles, colours, baskets and bells for those first exciting and wobbly outings. Oh! the freedom! Encouraging independence as your child grows up is on every parent’s list of priorities but, sadly, many children in the UK are dependent on a wheel chair. Despite a rare brain condition, Summer Stokley found freedom and a way of staying out of keeping a wheelchair at bay in the form of a toddler’s tricycle. Until the inevitable day she outgrew it.  Searching everywhere for their daughter to have a new tricycle, Summer’s parents found DEMAND had the answer. 

Four-year-old Summer has a rare genetic condition called Rett syndrome, meaning she cannot talk or walk unaided.  The original trike was designed for toddlers to get around and has been a life-line as Summer has grown up. Her ease of mobility helps prevent her condition from worsening. However, all too quickly, Summer is growing up fast. Her parents, Sarah and James started looking for a new trike to stop her from ending up in a wheelchair.

Her father, James, explains; “If she doesn’t keep using the ScuttleBug or something similar she will end up confined to a wheelchair. There is nothing else like it. We haven't been able to get anything suitable on the NHS.”

With the help of her trusty tricycle, Summer can play with her friends at Downs View School in Woodingdean, and take part in many other activities. Summer’s parents were struggling to find a replacement anywhere and launched a media campaign to help them in their search. Many generous people came forward with offers of help. The local press in Brighton were really supportive and even a letter from Australia was received suggesting a company that make special adaptive tricycles.   However, despite the help and generosity the family received there was continuing frustration as a trike that would both support Summer correctly and grow with her could not be found.

It wasn’t until Summer’s family discovered the charity DEMAND, and met with their work-placement student Emily Tulloh from Brunel University, that they found exactly what they were looking for. Emily, working closely with Summer and her family, designed and built a custom made, portable, fold-away adjustable trike.

The Rieves Foundation located in Apsley, Hemel Hempstead, very kindly offered to support DEMAND with funding for the tricycle, which can be adjusted as she grows, folded up to fit in the car or under the dinner table if the family enjoy a day out. 

DEMAND has been designing and manufacturing bespoke equipment for over 30 years and there are thousands of people, like Summer, who could benefit from the invention, skill and loving care of DEMAND’s design and craft team, who step in when no viable solution is available or is difficult to access. Mainstream manufacturers are just not able to make highly specialised ‘one-off’ items of equipment because it is uneconomic for them. DEMAND’s engineering and design expertise enable them to manufacture bespoke equipment that helps people with disabilities.

From two sites in the UK, their team of 19 staff work with individuals to design and manufacture equipment that makes their daily life easier or helps them to enjoy sport and leisure activities. Those with special requirements frequently find there is no ‘off- the- shelf’ solution. The donations they receive enable them to dedicate the time necessary to design solutions specific to an individual and provide the equipment free of charge.

DEMAND receives no NHS or Local Authority funding and is highly reliant on the generosity of its supporters, and the donations they make, in order to create these little miracles which improve the lived experience of over 3,000 people every year.  Keeping pace with a growing pipeline of requests for bespoke equipment is a constant challenge but there is a way the public can help.  To support DEMAND in making a huge difference to people’s ability to live independently, please call 01923 681800 or visit DEMAND.