Help Save Scoobs!!!

HELP SAVE SCOOBS - PLEASE!

Lovingly called Scoobs in our house, the Mystery Machine has become seriously ill - and it saddens me to think she will end up as scrap metal.

So it comes to this moment where I have tried everything I can to NOT have to ask for money... but Scoobs is dying! Confirmed by two VW specialists there is unfixable corrosion in the engine and the whole engine needs replacing. This is going to cost more than Scoobs actually dollar value worth.

But Scoobs is worth so much more than $$.

In the two years I have owned Scoobs I have seen more smiles, excitement, laughter and joy in the people around me than I have in any other period of my life. I have been stopped for photos, I have driven year 12's to their formals, and I have given many joy rides around the Gold Coast to random kids (with their parents permission of course!) to kids who would "just die" if they didn't get to ride in the mystery machine.

And I'm hoping that all this community love might just help me out and save Scoob's from the scrap metal heap.

I've never been emotionally attached to a car before - but no car I've ever owned has invoked so many smiles on peoples faces.

On a more family based level - my children love Scoobs too, and this could be a great part of my asking for help... Scoobs (with her double bed and her dance floor) has opened up a world of short distance travel and camping adventures for my children, which they had so rarely experienced before - because setting up a four person tent with two tinies and and un-adulty adult just isn't the fun part of camping.

On a business based level -  I am an art teacher, with my own studio just managing to support my children and my house on my own. Scoobs has been instrumental in carting my supplies for mobile classes, ferrying mini-artists from school to studio when parents have been unable to pick them up, advertising Artlis Studios and just basically being cool about allowing me to use her as a carthorse to and from places as far as an hour away so that kids don't have to miss out on their creative expression time.

I would love to continue the photo opps, the joy rides, the random strangers whooting in joy as we pass - and my children would love to continue taking her camping and using her for spontaneous roadside discos.

This is going to cost me somewhere between $5000-6000... I am saving my butt off right now to save her, but I just don't think I'll be able to get that much together by the time she decides to kick the bucket for good.

I don't have anything to offer, except that if you see me around I'll stop for a photo, feel free to bring your little boy or girl up for a closer look - or even a look inside (nothing too exciting - just a dance floor covered with artsupplies.) I'll even pretend to be Daphne (as one boy from Elanora thinks I am called) even though I'd so much rather be Velma.

If you're from around the Gold Coast I'll send you a voucher for a free art lesson if you donate more than $15.

If you're not from the Coast, I'll send you virtual hugs and love and appreciation!

Please help... Thinking of scoobs being torn to pieces in a junk yard feels like an impossible option.

Alternatively... if anyone knows of one of those Creatures from the Monster Trucks movie looking for a job...

NB: As a side note - If Scoobs doesn't get enough money to be fixed, I will refund everyones donations. And he she does!! Thankyou all so much - I'm more than happy to send you receipts for labour and parts so you can see where your money has been used :)