A Kirkland woman with cerebral palsy will begin her 300-mile wheelchair odyssey in her hometown on June 8.
Tania Finlayson plans to drive her electric-motor wheelchair from Kirkland to Spokane to raise money for people she says are less fortunate than her – those who are blind.
Finlayson – with the support of Machinists Union District Lodge 751 in Seattle – has been collecting donations for Guide Dogs of America, a California-based charity that provides guide dogs and training free of charge to people who are blind or visually impaired from across the United States and Canada.
Her goal is to raise $42,000, which is the cost of breeding, raising, training and pairing one guide dog with a blind person. She’s calling her effort the “Spokane Dash for Puppy Cash.”
As Finlayson heads across the Cascades, she’ll be in her wheelchair. She’ll be escorted by her family, in a motor home, and by Machinists Union volunteers in a brightly colored red and blue van. Her husband, Ken, will ride alongside much of the way on his bicycle.
If all goes to plan, Finlayson will arrive in Spokane’s Riverfront Park on June 11.
Finlayson’s journey actually started last year in Everett at the Flight for Sight fun run, one of several annual events sponsored by Machinists District 751 to raise money for Guide Dogs of America.
District 751 is the top fundraiser in North America for the charity. Over the past four years, union volunteers have collected more than $1 million for Guide Dogs of America, including a record $299,000 in 2012.
Finlayson – who communicates through a computer device she controls with her head using Morse code – says she tagged along to cheer on Ken, who works for the union as an information technology tech. Ken had been training for months to run the 10k portion of the Flight for Sight.
On the way to Everett, Ken convinced his wife that she too should take part in the race.
“As I was doing the race, I thought of how it would be if I was blind,” she said. Trying to drive a wheelchair without her vision “would be pretty scary.”
“Not to mention it would put limits on my independence and that would be something that I would just hate,” Finlayson said. “My independence is something that I treasure and value every day.”
That experience got her thinking about what she could do to help Guide Dogs of America to help other people.
When she first approached him with the idea for the Spokane Dash, “I thought she was crazy,” Ken said. “But, I mean, she’s come up with a lot of crazy things. We met skydiving.”
“One thing I learned about Tania,” he continued, “is that it’s a lot more comfortable and safer to get behind her when she gets her mind on something, than get in front of her. Because if you get in front of her, she’ll probably just run you over.”
“People say driving to Spokane is an amazing endeavor,” Finlayson said. “But in my eyes it is just a pebble in my journey in life, to lend a helping hand to Guide Dogs of America. Hopefully I will be able to help knock a boulder out of someone’s path in their journey in life.”
Finlayson plans to “warm up” for the Spokane Dash by taking part in this year’s Flight for Sight fun run, which also will be at 9:30 a.m. June 8 in Everett.
To donate
To donate to the Spokane Dash for Puppy Cash, go online at dashforcash.kintera.org. You can follow her preparations on Facebook at www.facebook.com/SpokaneDash4PuppyCash
