Editor's note: This story is part of Sioux Falls Simplified's second annual "A Little Help" give-back effort. We're sharing stories all month long about Owen's Outfitters with the goal of raising $5,000 to support this fast-growing nonprofit. You can learn more here and donate here.

It doesn’t look like much, the navy blue 2009 Dodge Grand Caravan. 

But when Mike Turner shows it off in the parking lot behind Owen’s Outfitters – the nonprofit medical equipment lending library he and his wife started to honor their late son – his excitement is what you might imagine from someone showing off a brand new sports car. 

It’s not that Turner is a big fan of early aughts minivans. It’s the meaning behind it. 

This minivan is the single largest donation Owen’s Outfitters has received, and it’s a very big deal because it’s not just any old minivan. 

It’s a minivan that’s been modified to accommodate a person in a wheelchair.

It’s the minivan that Darlene Fick used to drive around her now-32-year-old daughter for more than a decade before deciding it was time to pass it along to another family. 

And as of last week, it’s the van that Tammy Roth used to bring her husband, Loren, home for the first time in 10 months after a farm accident caused a traumatic brain injury that left him paralyzed. 

“You don’t expect something like this to happen, but then when it does, it’s humbling the number of people who want to help,” Roth said. 

A full circle moment

For Fick, donating the van felt like the right thing to do, and in a way it’s a full-circle moment because the first wheelchair-accessible van her family had was also a gift. 

When Fick’s daughter, Sarah, was only six months old, she started having seizures and was later diagnosed with Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome, a form of epilepsy. 

• As a teenager, Sarah’s mobility became more and more affected by the disease, and she began to need a wheelchair to get around outside the home.

Sarah was about 15 when Fick’s sister gifted the family a wheelchair-accessible van, which, unfortunately, was involved in a car accident a few years later that left it totaled. 

So, in 2011, Fick and her husband started looking for another one, and ultimately found a Dodge Caravan in Kentucky that had recently been converted to an accessible van. 

“It’s not like you just go to your local dealer and find one,” Fick said of the vehicle. “It’s kind of a national supply.” 

Fick used the van every day to take Sarah to school, appointments, DakotAbilities day services, wherever she needed to go. But as Sarah grew up and began using DakotAbilities residential services, the times when her mother needed to transport her were fewer and farther between. 

More and more, the van sat in the driveway unused.

Fick had heard of Owen’s Outfitters from her grandson’s pediatrician, and she reached out to Turner to see if he could help get the van to a family who could use it. 

“It meant more to me than any money I could get from the van – to have it go to a family in need,” Fick said. 

A help at just the right time

For Tammy Roth, the memories of the day of her husband’s accident are extremely vivid – her 3-year-old grandson taking a walk with Loren along the creek near their home in Freeman, getting McDonald’s for lunch in Yankton (a first for the grandson), and the pride in her husband’s face when he looked out at the family’s herd of cattle.

Now, nearly a year later, she knows her life is never going to be the same. 

Loren was loading cattle onto a semi when a steer turned around and knocked him down onto the concrete. He spent three weeks in the ICU, where he nearly died, Roth said, and after that was in a nursing facility until just last week. 

Though Roth and her four children are still adjusting to all of the dramatic changes that came with Loren’s injury, in many ways, things are looking up. 

• A Minnesota-based nonprofit, Game Plan 4 Hope, helped the family add a wheelchair ramp, widen doorways and renovate their bathroom to make their home more accessible.
• A friend of the family recently held a benefit where about 300 people turned out to show their support for the Roth family. 
• Loren is also now on medication that’s helping him stay more alert more often. He’s talking more, and, now that they have the van from Owen’s Outfitters, the couple was even able to make a trip to see their brand new granddaughter. 

“We’re just regular people, and to have that many people come out and show their support, it’s just, you don’t know how lucky you are,” Roth said. 

How did this all come together? 

Roth initially heard about Owen’s Outfitters from her daughter’s mother-in-law, but it was a social worker at the nursing facility that first heard about the van. 

“Word traveled around the nursing home that there was a van Owen’s Outfitters had that was donated to them,” she said. “I called, and it just went from there.” 

Meanwhile, behind-the-scenes Turner was working to get the title transferred, a process that can take several months right now. But, thanks to some help from Leslee Gundvaldson at Billion Auto, they were able to expedite the process. 

Additionally, the Avera Foundation stepped up to cover the cost of the title transfer, vehicle registration, etc., so Roth wasn’t left with any out-of-pocket expenses for the donation.

“I hope one day to pay it forward,” she said.