The Kindness of Strangers Spreads Message of Hope

“Papa, papa! We've got a new car!” Shayleigh Batcheldar squealed, throwing herself into her grandfather's arms Thursday morning.

The 7-year-old's cries were echoed by her sisters Serenity, 5, and Addelyn, 2, as the wrapped themselves up into hugs too, before running back to the gray van that had just been given to their family.

The Batcheldar family was on the receiving end of a considerable amount of generosity Thursday morning when they arrived at the High Hopes Foundation in Merrimack to receive a van that had been donated to them by another family through the local charity organization.

Sitting next to the new-to-them gray Chrysler Town and Country van in the parking lot was their current van, oddly enough, an identical vehicle in model and color, that has been breaking down constantly and deemed illegal, and a hazard. With rust patches, chronic problems starting, a check engine light that no mechanic can seem to diagnose and a plethora of other problems, the Batcheldars shouldn't be driving the van from home to the grocery store, let alone from New Hampton to Boston multiple times a month.

But Shayleigh lives with a neurological disorder that requires regular visits to Boston Children's Hospital and Scott recently learned that a pancreas transplant was failing, which is sending the family to Boston's Massachusetts General Hospital to deal with his medical issues.

Diana Batcheldar said the van she's been driving has been known to cause problems. She's been told she cannot start the van inside the parking garage Children's Hospital because it is a danger when she starts it up.

“We're there so much, they know me by name now, and they said, 'Diana, you can't park that van in here anymore,” Diana Batcheldar said. She was all smiles as she looked at the newly-donated van, a clone of what she's been driving.

“When I found out someone had donated a van I said, 'I hope it's like this one. I love this van,'” Batcheldar said. She had no idea she'd be getting a nearly carbon copy, minus the mechanical issues and the rogue wheel that fell off while she was driving last week.

Diana and Scott Batcheldar “are the kind of people who never say no to a child in need,” said Shaunae Nolet, president of the board at the High Hopes Foundation on Thursday morning. 

That was why being able to help them by donating a safe and reliable mode of transportation was so special.

In recent years, the couple has taken in five of their grandchildren – Shayleigh, Serenity, Addelyn and Kamryn, 9, and their cousin Jade, 11. They have put everything into raising this very active bunch of kids, and they've truly been struggling, Nolet said.

The High Hopes Foundation is a charitable organization that has been in Merrimack for 30 years. As a model, they generally grant wishes to children living with terminal and chronic illnesses that make the child's daily life a struggle.

This is the first time they've ever donated a vehicle to a family, Nolet said.

“We saw no reason why this doesn't fall within our mission of making daily life better for a family dealing with a chronic illness,” Nolet said.

Generally, High Hopes is made aware of a child who is sick, which gets the process rolling in terms of learning more about the child, their illness and their wish and putting together a way to grant that wish.

In this case, High Hopes was approached by Christine Monterio, a social worker in the neurology department at Children's Hospital, wondering if it was possible for High Hopes to help this family find a new vehicle.

High Hopes Director Rachel McMeen said they were contacted by Monterio in July. They worked with Katy Gautsch, a caseworker with Partner in Health to verify the family's situation and determine the exact needs.

Because they are a smaller non-profit, they are able to change the scope of how they help families with board approval, McMeen said. So she and Nolet presented the case to the board asking for permission to attempt to grant this request.

It's generally a longer process, McMeen said, but they got permission to speed it along and McMeen started contacting people she knew, car dealers and the like, to see if she could track down a suitable replacement vehicle for the Batcheldars.

She turned to social media July 30, posting a call for help on Facebook.

“Three hours later, I got the call,” McMeen said.

It took just three hours to track down a donor – a family that was planning to trade in their Chrysler Town and Country van.

“It was almost like fate,” McMeen said. “They were going to trade it in and said, 'Instead of trading it, we'll just buy a new car and take the donation write-off.'”

McMeen said she was floored by how quickly it all happened.

“In this story, a lot of people came together and it kind of amazed me,” McMeen said.

Once they had the van, which took some time to get the legalities of trading the title over and working through the liability paperwork involved with providing a family with a car, Bill Gurney of Gurney's Automotive Repair in Nashua volunteered to work over the car and make sure it would run for the family with no problems.

Gurney and his wife Charlotte were on hand Thursday morning, quietly taking the scene in as the children climbed through the vehicle, inspecting an array of goodies packed into the trunk for the family.

“We did a fair amount of work to it to make sure it was roadworthy for a while, with no problems for the family,” Gurney said. “It's just a really good thing to be a part of.”

Charlotte Gurney said it was nice to be able to put faces to the people they were helping.

“It was really our privilege to be part of this,” Bill Gurney said.

Over watching the girls check out the van, which came with new, donated car seats for the younger girls, Scott Batcheldar said it was good to know the family would be safer riding in this newer vehicle.

“It's nice if you can have a car you can depend on for 50 or 60,000 miles, versus a couple hundred miles at a time,” Batcheldar said.

As the whole group gathered for a photo in front of the donated van, Diana Scott tearfully thanked McMeen and the others for making this possible, telling them they had given her family hope.

“This is really a High Hopes kind of day,” she said.