It does need a little help to run well

A Corvallis woman who donated a handicap-accessible van to a young Medford man with multiple sclerosis is hoping to inspire more acts of kindness to restore it to good running order.

Maxine Sprick of Corvallis delivered her gift in person Tuesday morning to 19-year-old Micah Maeda.

"It was actually a shock," Maeda said. "My brother just calls up and he’s like, ‘Hey, this lady wants to give you a van.’ I’m like, ‘Ooooo-kay.’"

Maeda must use a wheelchair much of the time and does not have a vehicle with a lift, limiting his independence. This van could give Maeda the means he needs to find a job, go to college and attend MS camp on his own this summer.

"(Sprick) decided I’d be a good person to have the van, I guess," he said. "It’s going to need some work. I want to get the engine mechanically reliable first, and worry about the aesthetics later."

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Sprick had been holding on to the 1976 Ford Econoline since her husband, Garland, died in May 2001. A teacher for more than 30 years in the Corvallis school system, Garland Sprick had battled transverse myelitis, a disease that damages the nervous system and spinal cord, causing paralysis.

He was diagnosed in high school, Sprick said, and went from being a star athlete "scouted by the big leagues" to someone who relied on others during college to lift him up flights of stairs to attend class.

In the early 1970s, when Garland Sprick was a junior high school teacher, fellow teachers and students held fund-raisers to purchase the van and a special lift, providing him the freedom he had long been without.

"It gave him mobility and great happiness," Maxine Sprick recalled. "He loved it when he was able to get in and drive it.

"He would have an ear-to-ear grin on his face. He took it hunting, to work, he did everything he wanted to with this rig … I wanted to see this do that for someone else."

Unsure how to properly find a new home for the rig, Sprick initially attempted to put it in a yard sale. She took it to a car wash to have it cleaned when some local ROTC students began "making a fuss" over it. Turns out, they were friends of Maeda and his brother, Nathan.

Learning of Maeda and his hobbies and active lifestyle limited only by vehicle restraints, Sprick said she knew her husband would have enjoyed seeing the van go to Maeda.

With the exception of aesthetics, and some undetermined mechanical work, the van is in running condition. Sprick provided a gift certificate for some of the work to be done but said much more would be needed to bring it up to par.

Maeda’s mother, Judy King, said she was holding her breath until final repair estimates were in. She said she felt she had been in a "catch-22," working and not eligible for assistance in providing an adequate vehicle but unable to afford one, given their high prices. A typical lift alone can cost $8,000 or more, she said.

King said she was hopeful the gift would do as intended.

"If we can make it work, it’s going to be a new world," she said.

"When you’re talking to a young man like this who’s 19, he’s ready to go," she said. "He’s got his friends, he’s got things to do. This is going to hopefully offer him the independence I think he actually craves — independence that anyone would crave."

Those wishing to help repair Micah Maeda’s van may contact him by e-mailing mrmaeda@hotmail.com or by calling 512-1308.

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Buffy Pollock is a free-lance writer living in Medford. E-mail her at buffypollock@juno.com.