By Gintautas Dumcius
Special to the Reporter

On a Tuesday afternoon last March, the first thing Eugene Flaherty did with his new van was go to his Episcopal church in Winthrop with his mother Jan.

Up next was a showing of the musical "Damn Yankees" at the North Shore Music Theater in Beverly.

By the time UMass-Boston administration officials formally gave them the car keys in a small ceremony in the Campus Center last month, the van had already acquired 450 miles on the odometer.

Flaherty, a 24-year-old junior majoring in management at the Dorchester campus, isn't just any student.

And the van isn't just any van, but a green 2005 Toyota Sienna with a trick or two up its pipes. Hit a button on the keys, and a small bridge extends from the inside and the passenger side door slides back, allowing for someone in a wheelchair, like Flaherty, to wheel themselves into a space on the passenger's side.

Flaherty, disabled since birth, received the van through the university's Empower Disabled Fund, a foundation started up in 2005 and designed to help students with disabilities achieve independence. Flaherty was the fund's first recipient, after his 11-year-old van broke down last year.

"It's a wonderful thing to have a vehicle again to give me, to a large extent, anyway, spontaneous mobility, for lack of a better term," Flaherty said.

Depending on public transportation, like the MBTA's The Ride, can be a "real pain sometimes," and doesn't offer him the flexibility to get to classes and help out at his Winthrop church as a van would, he said. The van will also help him get to job interviews and work after he graduates UMass-Boston.

Standing outside of the Campus Center, his mother marveled at the specially-equipped van. "It's so advanced," said Jan, who works as a middle school teacher in Woburn. "Everything's remote control."

The fund, through its founder Sergio Goncalves, who like Eugene has speech and mobility disabilities, and UMass media ethics lecturer Ellen Hume acting as its advisor, swung into action, attempting last year to raise the money needed after learning that the old van was on its last legs.

"I felt proud that we got it done," said Goncalves, who works as a facilities assistant in the Athletics Department and serves on the board of the Boston Center for Independent Living, a private non-profit. "My goal is to go beyond Eugene. Each year I want to help another individual achieve," both inside and outside the classroom, he said through a computer speech device.

With the help of Robert Boch, who runs Expressway Toyota on Morrissey Boulevard, and William Thorndike, a self-described "old Bostonian" and a member of Hume's Trinity Episcopal church in Copley Square, the $47,000 needed for the van was raised and a silent auction for the fall was set up.

Thorndike raised $35,000 through friends and other contacts, and was able to get a grant from the Boston Episcopal Charitable Society "that put them over the top," Thorndike said.

For his part, Boch will donate and help auction off a new Toyota Corolla, worth around $14,000, at $50 a ticket to raise money for the fund in the fall. Boch, who has also raffled off used cars to students with perfect attendance at the end of the year at Dorchester High School, said the car will probably be displayed in the Campus Center's upper level in September.

"There's a need here at UMass to help the disabled get around," said Boch, who got involved when Charlie Titus, UMass-Boston's vice chancellor of athletics approached him last fall. "I told him we would help by donating the car," Boch said.

Titus agreed on the need, calling the Empower Disabled Fund a "tremendous, tremendous effort." For more information on the fund, check out empowerdisabled.umb.edu.