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REVIEW
richmondreview.com Friday, December 28, 2012
20 PAGEs
Community gives Emily a new start Ashton Caring Team leading way to build accessible home for 12-year-old Steveston girl by Matthew Hoekstra Staff Reporter
I
t started small as most things do, but having lunch with the Man in Motion quickly changed that.
As Brian Williams sat across from Rick Hansen—the man who wheeled around the world raising money, awareness and hope for people with spinal cord injuries—he heard the story of Emily de Boer. Emily, a bright, athletic 12-year-old Steveston girl, had recently lost the use of her legs following a surgery that went wrong. On Feb. 14, 2011, an attempt to correct a spine curvature left her a paraplegic. Emily needed a new bathroom—something right up the alley of Williams’ Richmond-based company, Ashton Service Group. But Williams and a growing army of volunteers decided to do one better: build the family an entirely new house.
‘We needed to start over’ During a visit home from the hospital last year, the de Boer family was hit with the understanding their newly-renovated Steveston house wouldn’t be their home for much longer. It wasn’t accessible, and alterations would be too costly. Dad Grant carried Emily upstairs into the living room, where the family cat found a place to rest in a familiar lap. But when the cat darted down the hall the family fell silent. “It was a very sad moment because she couldn’t run after the cat,” said mom Charmis. “That night she said to (us), ‘I don’t think I can live here.’ We needed to start over.” They did, selling the home and buying a fixer-upper nearby. An architect drafted plans for another renovation. Meanwhile, Williams and his wife Julie arranged to have dinner with Emily’s parents to hear the whole story. The next day, Williams knocked on the door of the de Boer family’s “new” house. What he saw
Matthew Hoekstra photo Emily de Boer with mom Charmis de Boer and Brian Williams, president of Ashton Service Group, at the construction site of the de Boer family home.
was an old two-storey dwelling that needed a lot of work. It had a pool—Emily took up swimming again—but it wasn’t heated. And without an elevator, Emily was trapped downstairs.
A caring team Williams, a father to three boys, was moved by Emily’s story, and shared it the next day over breakfast with a supplier, who immediately offered to donate bathroom fixtures. That had Williams thinking.
He approached his friend and contractor Ken Johnson. The pair had previously completed a similar renovation project for a Richmond firefighter paralyzed from a highway accident. Johnson didn’t hesitate to help again. Renovation costs were tallied and the pair
approached the de Boer family a few weeks later with more than just sketches for a bathroom. “I think we should knock it over,” Williams told them. “Go find an apartment or house close-by and give us a year.” Williams and his wife formed the Ashton Caring Team—focused on community involvement, volunteerism and corporate responsibility. The concepts weren’t new to Ashton, but the scale of the project led the company to organize its efforts under one umbrella. See Page 3
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