Your donations to JET-TV's Community Challenge, part of Oprah's Big Give, helped many local charities.

Those donations have give one man freedom he has not experiened for the past nine years.

Walt Whitling is back in the driver's seat after a spinal cord tumor put him in a wheelchair in 1999. 

It robbed the career trucker of his ability to drive.  Now he has that freedom back. 

Your donations paid for special hand controls in Whitling's van. 

"It was just like it was surreal," Whitling said.  "I never thought it was going to happen.  I always wanted to get it done."

With a little bit of training, the controls allow Whitling to drive as easily as if he were using pedals. 

"I couldn't believe it, that I was actually driving again after that many years," Whitling said. 

Voices For Independence helped Whitling get behind the wheel again.  Now that he can drive, he's even thinking about getting a job with VFI. 

"Walt represents, for all of us, freedom," Shona Eakin, Executive Director for Voices For Independence said.  "This story is about his freedom and our freedom."

"When Erie stepped up and offered to do this, I think it was really, really good for Walt and really good for the mission of Voices For Independence," VFI's Marc Keller said. 

For more information on Voices For Independence, check out the organization's web site.