Celebrating 40 Years Of Improving The Lives Of Those With Reduced Mobility

As we shared in mid-May in various social media posts, such as this one, Lift & Care Systems’ President and Founder, Dave Austin, was thrilled to be able to attend the 40th anniversary celebration of one of the manufacturers whose high-quality and life-improving products we offer those living with disability – Handimove. We are proud to offer Handimove’s Surehands® brand of ceiling lift, mobile lift, and body support & sling (patient lift) products to individuals and group homes in CT, MA, and RI.

As a Surehands authorized dealer for almost 30 years, we’ve always felt fortunate to play a role in carrying out Handimove’s/Surehands’ mission to ensure individuals living with disability or aging in place enjoy the best possible quality of life and independence. And, we felt particularly fortunate this spring to join Handimove leadership and fellow Handimove/Surehands dealers at a very uplifting, memorable celebration weekend held at and near Handimove’s headquarters in Belgium.

Dave will never forget the great hospitality that was shown him during Handimove’s Company Weekend, and the many fun, diverse opportunities (including drumming!) for reconnecting with old friends and making new ones, and for learning about the new products that Handimove plans to offer in the future to continue to achieve their goals of improving the lives of those with reduced mobility and serving as an innovation leader in the patient lift industry. Like Lift & Care Systems, Handimove is a family-run business, and they definitely made dealers like us feel like family during that very special weekend!

We share below some of our favorite remarks made by both Handimove’s founder, as well as the organization’s president (the founder’s son) during the several-day event. But, you can watch this video if you wish to hear thoughts from leaders, dealers, and employees, as well as observe the great passion that attendees brought to the celebration – a passion that we believe they bring to their daily work of making sure the durable medical equipment (DME) and transport needs of the disabled and elderly are met.

Note: Pictured at the bottom of this post is Lift & Care’s President, Dave Austin (on left) with Handimove’s Founder, Rene Van Raemdonck (on right.)

40th Anniversary Celebration Remarks From Handimove’s Founder Rene Van Raemdonck.

“When I made the Surehands body support…for an MS (multiple sclerosis) patient in 1980, I did not expect that from the end of 1982, we would be able to help thousands of people every year.”

“Dear friends. Thank you so much. I think I'm the happiest man in the world. Having such a group of importers, such a group of employees. I could work together with so many people, with so many good people, internal and external. And, I have a really nice son who take over everything. Does it better than I do, different than I do, but at least beautiful work he does for the last years and all the time he worked with me. So thank you everybody to come here. Thank you for the cooperation, for the friendship. And I hope you can do a lot of work with Stefan too. I hope so. And thank you for coming to the big event for everybody.”

40th Anniversary Celebration Remarks From Handimove’s President, Stefan Van Raemdonck.

“My dear friends, when I was a child, I looked up to people who, at a certain moment in their lives, did a heroic deed. Now that I'm older, I realize that it's not about doing a heroic deed once. It's about trying to do a heroic deed every day. And that is what we do. That is what we do together. We help people who are in need. We help wheelchair users. We help their families. We help their caregivers and we do it every single day. And that makes us heroes of the day. That is our identity. That is our mission.”

”40 years is a long time to be doing this. And, in those 40 years, and last couple of days, we looked about, we looked towards the future and we celebrate it. And, if you look towards the future, you also have to look towards the past. You have to ask yourself the question, “who were the people that helped us succeed, who got us this far?” And the answer is many, many people got us this far. And to all of those people, I want to say, thank you for helping us, for making this 40-year dream come true.”

“My dear friends. This one is for you know, the reason we're all here -- my father. He has many good qualities. He is always searching, stubborn, bright, an eternal optimist - - he just turned 18 -- progressive. And, he always sees things that other people don't like, like with the new standard, the double movement, nobody saw it, he saw it. And, so he gave us a new patent.”

The team of disability & aging in place experts and durable medical specialists at Lift & Care Systems has been helping individuals living with disability in MA, CT, and RI enjoy the best quality of life and greater independence for almost 30 years. Our skilled team can install and teach you how to correctly use one or several of the following types of products that help both seniors and disabled individuals enjoy more freedom and a higher quality of life: ceiling lifts, body support & slings, staircase lift chairs, wheelchair ramps, bathroom safety for seniors, mobile lifts, pool lifts, vertical platform lifts, accessible showers, wall-to-wall patient lifts.

Reach out for a free consultation about how we can help you and your loved one related to accessibility and safety DME needs.