Donation Puts Arts Program Back on Track
A polio-paralyzed acting instructor whose plan to expand her performing arts program was thwarted by a car thief six months ago got a new set of wheels Tuesday.
A specially equipped new $135,000 motor home was donated to performance instructor Loree Lynn by the Annenberg Foundation. It replaces a 33-foot used motor coach stolen Aug. 25 while it was being prepared to carry her and several assistants to Chicago.
Foundation Vice President Wallis Annenberg said she decided to purchase the new Infinity Four Winds “adaptive motor home” for Lynn after reading of the theft and its impact on plans to turn the nonprofit DreaMakers Center into a national teaching program for those with handicaps.
“It was a privilege to do it. She is an incredible woman. If I’d had to drive her to Chicago myself, I would have,” Annenberg said Tuesday.
The replacement coach -- equipped with hand controls and a hydraulic wheelchair lift -- will allow the 60-year-old Lynn to travel in May to lay the groundwork for expansion of her nonprofit program.
“I couldn’t believe it when they called to say they were donating a new one,” Lynn said as she took delivery of the specially designed motor home at Advanced Mobility Corp. in Van Nuys. “The theft was devastating -- the most unbelievable thing.”
Lynn had purchased the secondhand coach in mid-August. It was undergoing minor repairs so it could be insured, when it disappeared from outside an independent mechanic’s home in South Los Angeles. Police were unable to track down the 1991 Kountry Star motor home.
The theft forced Lynn to cancel a planned trip to Chicago last autumn.
Besides launching the expansion of DreaMakers, she was to have begun working with a documentary filmmaker there who is preparing a cable television movie on her life and work.
She has now rescheduled the trip for May 15.
“I’m going to start practicing driving this tomorrow with a few little trips around the block,” she said as Advanced Mobility worker Julienne Dallara -- herself in a wheelchair -- showed Lynn the controls.
DreaMakers supporters cheered as Lynn received the coach. One of them, Tim McAtee, a Torrance firefighter who operates a hook-and-ladder truck, drove it for her to Manhattan Beach, where the arts program is based.
