
Wherever Gainesville’s Mason family travels, some heavy lifting has to be factored into the equation. Two of Lashaunda and Alonzo’s three boys have developmental conditions that require their battery-powered wheelchairs to be transported with them.
Brothers Zaivion, 19, and Zyler, 11, rely on their wheelchairs due to their disabilities.
Instead of a wheelchair-accessible van equipped with lifts, ramps and plenty of space for all wheelchairs and passengers, the Masons must manually lift their sons and their chairs into a Chrysler Town & Country minivan and ride in separate vehicles to get the job done.
“To leave the house, I have to lift [Zaivion], walk into the van, put him in his seat, get his wheelchair and take it outside,” said Alonzo. “If my wife isn’t here, I lift the wheelchair by myself. If I’m not here she has to do it. Our middle son [18-year-old Zachary], if he’s not at work, he’ll help us do some of this stuff. But most of the time it’s either one of us by ourselves.”

With ongoing maintenance upkeep and the physical toll of transporting wheelchairs in their current van plaguing the Masons, they’re in the market for a new van. But this isn’t a purchase the low-income family can easily make, and the community is rallying around them to help after they’ve helped so many others before.
On top of supporting the needs of their own family with disabilities, Lashaunda and Alonzo spend much of their time investing in those with disabilities in their community too. Lashaunda works as a rehab aide at UF Health Shands Hospital, and Alonzo is a paraprofessional to Exceptional Student Education (ESE) teachers at Lake Forest Elementary School.
Seeing the Mason family’s servant hearts and pressing vehicle demands, Gainesville resident Abby Zachritz spearheaded a campaign via SupportNow last month to raise $30,000 towards a new wheelchair-accessible van for the family. The effort has already raised nearly $6,100.

“This couple is one of the most AMAZING couples I have ever met,” Zachritz posted on Facebook. “They have 3 beautiful boys and 2 with wheelchairs…..they have no wheelchair van and are manually putting both wheelchairs in the van every day (Yall that hurts my back saying it)…..THIS is something WE CAN HELP WITH! If we can get 1000 people to give $30 dollars they will have a wheelchair accessible van!”
Lashaunda and Alonzo’s desire to help people with disabilities started kindling well before starting their careers and raising their children.

The Eastside High School sweethearts who met as 16-year-olds and shared their first date at Burger King said they were blessed to find one another, as each grew up exposed to disabilities. Lashaunda cared for her brothers with cerebral palsy and Down syndrome, while Alonzo’s mom worked at Tacachale—a developmental disability center in Gainesville—and cared for his grandmother who had polio.
When the Mason’s first son, Zaivion, was born in 2005, he stayed in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Shands for nearly a week after his umbilical cord had wrapped around his neck and he battled a stroke and seizures.
Doctors initially diagnosed Zaivion with cerebral palsy, but once he was old enough for other conditions to show up in genetic testing, he was diagnosed with Pelizaeus-Merzbacher Disease (PMD). The rare genetic disorder is passed down through mothers whose female children will be carriers of the gene and male children will have a 50% chance of presenting with the condition.
Zachary was born next without any outstanding conditions, followed by Zyler, who was also born with PMD.
To cover ongoing costs of care such as doctor’s appointments and therapy sessions, Lashaunda and Alonzo have relied mostly on the boy’s Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) checks. According to the Social Security Office of Retirement and Disability Policy, over nine million disabled Americans received SSDI benefits in 2021.
But Alonzo said the SSDI funds his family uses weren’t easy to get, nor have they been easy to keep.
“When I first applied for Social Security, they denied us three times,” Alonzo said. “We had to go to a hearing, and I rode my son in there in his little wheelchair and the judge asked him questions. So they questioned a 3-year-old with a disability to make sure that they’re not being scammed.”

One day after five years of working as a correctional officer at the Seguin Unit—a section of Tacachale that represented people incompetent to stand trial—Alonzo said he and his wife got a letter from the government after the Agency for Persons with Disabilities approved him for a promotion.
“Almost three weeks into that job, my wife gets a letter in the mail, which has happened to us frequently, that we’re making too much money and if we continue to make too much money, they’re going to take the boy’s benefits,” Alonzo said.
Even if he got a bonus check, Alonzo said it counted against his son’s SSDI benefits for making too much money. Once the family makes too much money, they owe the government however much extra they make.
After settling for a demotion, Alonzo eventually took a job with the school in 2018 where he still currently works, to keep the boys’ benefits and the family’s income below the required $3,000 a month.
“I’ve had people tell me, ‘why don’t you just get a better-paying job and if you make more money, then you can put the money in a trust,’” Alonzo said. “I’m like, but I shouldn’t have to. I should’ve never had to quit my state job…[the boys are] going to be like this for the rest of their lives, it shouldn’t matter what we make, but they don’t see it that way.”
As much as Lashaunda and Alonzo said they don’t like burdening their family and friends by asking for help, they said their circumstances have humbled them to rely on others God has provided for daily help in taking care of their sons around work shifts and paying their bills. This has made them grateful in the process.

Zachritz’s campaign to raise funds for a new van for the Masons is the community’s third attempt to make it happen in the last few years. Past efforts were derailed either by having to raise money towards repaying Social Security benefits or fixing their old van.
But so far, this go-around has been the fastest growing and the family hopes to get as close to their goal as possible before Zaivion’s hip surgery scheduled in March.
“God has always put good people in our life to help us,” Alonzo said. “We don’t like to ask for help because there’s a lot of things we shouldn’t have to ask for. But we’re forced to need help from everybody.”
Excellent article which mysteriously does not include information on how your readers can help. Please provide us with that information. Thank you.
Hi Susan. In the article, the link to the SupportNow website is provided in the seventh paragraph. Here it is:
https://www.supportnow.org/accessible-van-for-mason-family?fbclid=IwY2xjawIg3AxleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHdHVSe1mEcqKvZvZVFAhQCJ5yOzv2l5_7wxkrPtnDXy4S4J9m6BIAbNsPw_aem_QEHBBgvdjLh5-gCESCu1BQ
so glad this is being covered, we need to talk about these things more!