{"id":397405,"date":"2026-09-12T00:04:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T00:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/397405\/"},"modified":"2026-09-12T00:04:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-12T00:04:13","slug":"fort-myers-beach-rallies-around-cape-coral-mom-to-help-buy-wheelchair-accessible-van","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/397405\/","title":{"rendered":"Fort Myers Beach rallies around Cape Coral mom to help buy wheelchair accessible van"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fort Myers Beach rallies around Cape Coral mom to help buy wheelchair accessible van<\/p>\n

\"Britt<\/a>LEE COUNTY, Fla. \u2014<\/p>\n

“How can you be mad about showing up for work and getting to look at sailboats all day long?” Amanda Brown said. <\/p>\n

Amanda works on Fort Myers Beach, but when she’s home in Cape Coral, she’s spending time with her 6-year-old daughter, Amara.<\/p>\n

“Her condition is called Pelizaeus-Merzbacher-like disease, and we did not get a diagnosis until she was 3-and-a-half,” Amanda said. “The strain that it puts on my back and my body just in general, we had to switch over from the van I did have, because it was breaking down.”<\/p>\n

A couple of weeks ago, Amanda created a GoFundMe page to raise money for a new van. People on Fort Myers Beach took notice.<\/p>\n

“Amanda sent me an email asking if I’d share her GoFundMe page, which I said, sure, I’ll share that,” said Ed Ryan from Beach Talk Radio. “It was a thousand here, a thousand there, and before we knew it, it was $10,000.”<\/p>\n

The community raised enough for Amanda to accept a new wheelchair accessible van. For a town that’s lost so much, somehow, Fort Myers Beach hasn’t lost heart. <\/p>\n

DOWNLOAD\u202fthe free\u202fGulf Coast News app<\/a>\u202ffor your latest news and alerts on breaking news, weather, sports, entertainment, and more on your phone or tablet. And check out the Very Local Gulf Coast app<\/a> to stream news, entertainment, and original programming on your TV.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fort Myers Beach rallies around Cape Coral mom to help buy wheelchair accessible van LEE COUNTY, Fla. \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":397406,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[158380,1185,158366,158367,158369,209,211,158378,210,158375,4277,158371,2344,104,28,897,1695,158377,18297,1136,158379,213,356,266,158374,158372,52356,158370,992,4428,158376,197,221,158368,158373],"class_list":["post-397405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-6-year-old-daughter","tag-alert","tag-amanda-brown","tag-amara","tag-beach-talk-radio","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-mom","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-charity-drive","tag-community-support","tag-disabled-child","tag-download","tag-entertainment","tag-florida","tag-fort-myers","tag-fort-myers-beach","tag-fort-myers-beach-rally","tag-fundraiser","tag-gofundme","tag-gofundme-page","tag-late-news","tag-lee-county","tag-local-news","tag-mother-daughter","tag-new-van","tag-notice","tag-pelizaeus-merzbacher-like-disease","tag-people","tag-phone","tag-sailboats","tag-sport","tag-weather","tag-wheelchair-accessible-van","tag-wheelchair-van"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397405\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}