(Courtesy photo) Ray Keefe and Cooper Doucette in a recent photo. Thanks to Keefe's fundraising efforts, Cooper was able to get a new conversion van.

HUDSON – The process was as lengthy as it was challenging, but the small army of folks in Ray Keefe’s orbit were, once again, more than up for it.

The challenge: Raising enough money to cover the project of outfitting a full-size conversion van with the adaptive equipment necessary to accommodate a disabled young man, his wheelchair and other accessories that help him get around as much as possible.

Earlier this month, Keefe, a Hollis man known throughout the region for his deep involvement in organizing, and seeing through, various types of fundraisers for people from close friends to complete strangers with a common thread of needing a hand up, announced that the finishing touches were wrapping up on the 2020 Dodge conversion van that would soon be on its way to the driveway at the home of Cooper Doucette, who was a Nashua High School North football player until he was seriously injured, and left paralyzed, during a pre-season practice in 2010.

“It took quite awhile to get the ramp of the van straightened out, but on March 8, Cooper and his dad took delivery” of the van, Keefe wrote in his announcement.

Keefe expressed gratitude to the “scores of generous people” whose donations totaled close to $60,000 – enough “to make this happen.”

(Courtesy photo) Cooper Doucette and his new conversion van, complete with a window sticker with his nickname, "Supa Coop," were photographed earlier this month when he and his father took delivery of the van.

He also thanked Jack Trottier and the Hudson-based dealership New England Motor Car “for making an easy transition for Cooper and his dad.”

The life of the van is estimated at 10 years, he added.

Those familiar with Keefe know about the annual Keefe Family Polar Plunge, easily the chilliest of all the fundraisers he and his family are involved in.

On the subject of the plunges, it was a previous benefactor of a polar plunge, Sandy Dubuque-Grimes, who made the first donation to Cooper’s van fund – a $2,000 pledge that got the ball rolling.

Keeping Cooper as mobile as possible has had its ups and downs over the years. His first van didn’t last all that long, but it was replaced fairly soon, albeit the result of an unfortunate set of circumstances.

(Courtesy photo) Cooper Doucette checks out the interior of his new conversion van, which he and his father, Bill, brought home from New England Motor Car in Hudson earlier this month.

Keefe’s father, who had a coversion van due to his disability, passed in 2016. So Keefe donated it to Cooper, who by then was attending University of New Hampshire, majoring in communications.

Come the 2016-17 school year – Cooper’s senior year – he had no classes on Fridays, so Keefe would drive to Durham each Thursday, pick up Cooper at his dorm and bring him to Project Walk, the paralysis recovery center in nearby Stratham.

After Cooper’s sessions, Keefe drove him home to Nashua to spend the remainder of the weekend.

It wasn’t all that long ago that Keefe, in organizing the fundraiser for a van for Cooper, wrote that “‘Coop’ needs a new van desperately. And he needs one that (can be) equipped uniquely to his personal physical specifications.”

Keefe learned that under a state program, the van could be adapted for Cooper at no cost to him, as long as the van is no older than two years and has under 30,000 miles.

“The van will not be inexpensive,” Keefe wrote at the time. “This will be a project that will require a lot of work.”

Mission accomplished.

Dean Shalhoup may be reached at 594-1256 or dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com.