The Cool Trainer Vincent Project: A Mission Born out of Necessity

My fifteen-year-old son, Vincent, is battling advanced, terminal, and incurable
Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD). 
At roughly 200 pounds, Vincent has completely lost his baseline trunk control. 
The daily physical toll of his care is breaking his parents and caregivers down. 
Every basic human function—from toileting to clothing and bathing—requires grueling,
barely possible physical transfers. 
Our current living environment is a physical trap of stairs and narrow doorways that restrict his survival, yet the Canadian government offers no real structural safety net or assistance in
finding or affording an accessible, single-level residence.

First and foremost, this project exists to achieve stability for Vincent. 
It is a direct, practical mission to fund a flat, accessible home where a terminal child
can live out his remaining time with basic safety, comfort, and human dignity. 
Beyond our immediate walls, this project is a proof of concept
to demonstrate that the high-end trading card hobby can structurally change a life
for the better.

 

The grander vision is to turn this into a registered Non-Profit Foundation
in Vincent’s name dedicated to providing vital quality-of-life assurances
for families with terminal children, integrated with a model called
Impact-Linked Collectibles (ILC) to prove that the hobby
can serve a structural purpose beyond simple ownership.

To spread our message and ask for a shot at hope and dignity for Vincent,
we launched a YouTube channel. 
However, as a disabled parent operating entirely without a team of editors,
designers, or collaborators, I am only capable of so much. 
I was only able to articulate a small part of our story, and because of
that inability to navigate the content algorithms, I was unable to
ask for help in the right way.

I am not a content creator. 

My goal was never to chase views;
it was to ask the community for a fighting chance. 
But failing to properly articulate that message in the digital space
turned our real-life struggle into a spectacle rather than a mission. 
I wanted to fight for my son's dignity—not ask for it to be handed to us
as it now seems to be viewed.

While a dedicated core of community members supported us,
individuals showed up, and select creators made trades with us,
the wider structural support fell short. 
We found ourselves navigating a landscape of unfulfilled commitments. 
Many offers of practical support, corporate sponsorship, and community partnerships simply evaporated, leaving promises unkept. 
In part, these commitments were broken through private
conversations over emails and direct messages.
Other times, the friction came from the reality of the lens we were carrying;
the physical camera we held to document our lives frequently
shifted the dynamic from a mutual partnership into an uneven public optic.

Behind these community trials lies a rigid legislative wall. 
As a disabled parent relying on provincial income support, the systemic barriers
built into the Canadian welfare system are concrete and uncompromising. 
The government places a strict, legal ceiling on the financial resources
a disabled person can accumulate before their vital baseline assistance
is penalized or stripped away entirely, such as through the
Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP). 
Because any standard financial fundraising or cash donations would
legally trigger a direct reduction in our survival support,
I could not ask the community for money.
Out of sheer necessity, I asked for trading card trades skewed in our favor. 
This was never a request for personal gain; it was a deliberate,
legal mechanism to establish a stable asset base for a teenager
who deserves basic human dignity.

If you are reading this, please take action. 
Real support looks like the community members
who have actually stood by us when others walked away:

 

• PokeRipsMS on YouTube, who stepped up and ran a month-long GoFundMe campaign in December 2025 specifically to support us; 

• Doctor Collectable, who is always ready and happy to collaborate on content, posts, and spreading the word; 

• Dan Shelley at @Whywepogo, who went out of his way to create a dedicated video on his own page to tell Vincent’s story on our behalf; 

• and Kyle Kravitz, the King of The Kards, who featured us in a video and gave us a platform to speak, and donated to our mission.

Along with countless vendors who have made signifigant contributions to our cause.

I often feel judged for believing my son deserves dignity. 
The harsh reality is that many who failed to show up for us never truly wanted to help;
they merely felt obligated by the optics. 
Everyone is quick to celebrate when a disabled person somehow overcomes a barrier,
yet they do absolutely nothing to remove those barriers in the first place. 

Remember this:
the disabled community is the only minority group that anyone can join
at any single moment, and you do not get a say in the matter.
The sad truth is, most of the world routinely ignores disabled and terminal children
until they are their own. 

If you want to help us move this mission forward, we are actively looking for concrete support. 
We desperately need help in the form of:

• Corporate Sponsorships and Partnerships

• Pro-bono Legal Counsel specializing in disability law

• Non-Profit Financial Advisory and structural guidance

• Video Editors and Videographers to help tell our story properly

​

You can reach out directly via email at cooltrainervincent@gmail.com. 
Financial support can be sent via PayPal to that same address, or by clicking the PayPal link below. 
Above all else, please share about Vincent and his story.
He deserves dignity.