It's been almost a year since Stony Point JV football player Jasiel Favors collided with another player and broke three vertebrae. He spent months in the hospital and remains in a wheelchair.
Earlier this year, a family friend created a GoFundMe page to raise money for a van with wheelchair access, but now they're realizing the $15,000 goal won't buy a van like they had hoped.
Favors, 17, is back at school for half days. He said he’s happy to see his friends.
"They walk me to my classes, walk around, talk about old times,” Jasiel said.
But he also wants to continue to make new memories with his buddies. That's why his family is raising money for a van with wheelchair access.
"Just to be out and about and not be trapped inside the house,” he said.
Right now, his mom Debra Favors said they take him out of his chair and lift him into their car, something she feels is dangerous.
"When we lift him, it's not healthy, if someone slip and fall getting him in the car, he going down,” Debra said.
With this system, she also worries about a car wreck injuring Jasiel even further.
"If we get in an accident, he shouldn't be in the front seat, he needs to be in the back where I know him and the chair ain't going nowhere, so he don't injure that neck again,” she said.
Debra said the vans they've seen in the $15,000 budget raised online aren't what they had hoped.
"I think the first one we seen had bees in it, living in it,” she said.
Others need thousands of dollars just to get the van running. So for now, Favors and family will do what they can. Like a typical teenager, Jasiel wants to go to the movies, hang out with his friends and most of all, go to the first home football game.
"I know the team took it hard last year, after the incident and I wasn't able to play with him and go to any games,” he said.
This year, he plans to go every chance he can get.
"Win or lose that's my team,” Jasiel said.
A team that's wanting Jasiel to get stronger just as much as he is.
You can donate to the Go Fund Me page here.