Photo provided Marcus Kuneff enjoys the summertime weather in his current wheelchair. He is due for a new one.

MARTINS FERRY — Martins Ferry resident Kendra Kuneff is determined to provide her 14-year-old son Marcus with an Eyegaze wheelchair.

Marcus has cerebral palsy with severe spasticity and is unable to move his extremities, making mobility virtually impossible without assistance.

According to the Cleveland Clinic, cerebral palsy happens when there’s damage to brain areas that control muscle movement, or when those areas don’t develop as they should. It’s a main cause of childhood disability.

Kendra Kuneff said that she’s been trying to do some fundraising to purchase the new wheelchair.

“His teacher Julia Weeks, God bless her,” Kuneff said. “She is one of the sweetest women. She actually did a T-shirt sale for him, and we finished that up at the end of May. And then we’re going to try to do maybe a spaghetti dinner or quarter auction or something like that, but we haven’t set anything up yet.”

Kuneff said she created a GoFundMe because a heart attack she suffered two weeks ago has now left her unable to work full time.

“I’m only going to be working one day a week now, so it’s going to be a little hard to save $15,000 when I’m not the healthiest right now to start,” she said. “So I thought we’d start a GoFundMe to be able to give us and maybe some leeway and at least get us halfway there, if anything.”

The wheelchair is much more than a standard motorized wheelchair. It runs through Windows OS and, in coordination with the user’s eyegaze system, converts eye movements to commands to move the wheelchair or activate wheelchair functions.

Kuneff said she originally saw the Eyegaze wheelchair on TikTok and then Marcus’ doctor, Dr. Ellen Kitts, informed her that Marcus will be needing a new wheelchair and suggested the Eyegaze wheelchair.

According to Inclusion technology’s website, the Eyegaze system is an advanced AI-powered tracker, the smallest of its kind, providing advanced tracking accuracy, working seamlessly with assistive and mouse-driven software.

It uses eye and face detection with neural networks and is the only eye tracker with a dedicated accelerator chip processor for neural networks.

“We are trying to raise funds to get Marcus a new wheelchair, one that will give him some much-needed independence,” Kuneff said. “This is a motorized wheelchair that Marcus will be able to control using his eyes.

“He currently uses an Eyegaze machine to communicate and do all of his schoolwork, but he needs a different machine to control a wheelchair,” she added. “And, unfortunately, his insurance will only cover the power chair and not the Eyegaze machine to control it.”

She believes that the wheelchair would provide her son with much more freedom, independence, and joy.

“His brain mentality is all there, he just can’t control his extremity movement and he’s unable to speak,” Kuneff said. “He is literally trapped in his own mind and just wants to have fun and experience life to his fullest ability. We live in a small town, and Marcus is about to start high school in August.

“We are trying to do some fundraisers as well, but like I said, we are from a small town with a small community.”

Kuneff said her son loves football, especially the Ohio State Buckeyes and Philadelphia Eagles. He loves to watch all sports on TV, play with all sensory toys, especially noisemakers, take walks, and listen to music.

“We would be forever grateful for any help that we can get at this time to give this loving little man some more reasons to smile in life,” she said.

Since the GoFundMe page’s creation on Wednesday, it has raised $300. Those interested in donating to help Marcus receive a new wheelchair, search Mobility for Marcus: Eye Gaze Wheelchair Fund on GoFundMe’s website.