Corey Delgado was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis about two years ago.

His son Thomas, 7, is a riding member of the Bealiba Pony Club.

Supporting him from the sidelines is made difficult by the site’s limited disability access, Mr Delgado said.

“I’m either down on my own [out on the fence line] watching the young fella do what he does or, if I sit up on the verandah, I miss out on what he does,” he said. 

The pony club is seeking to raise $15,000 with its Big Give campaign to install a disabled access ramp leading up to the verandah.

‘Ramp it up for Bealiba Pony Club’ is one of the more than 40 causes registered on the initiative’s Chuffed.org website.

The Big Give is a community giving event, running for a month from today.

It culminates in a giving day on September 1, in which the registered groups stand to win a share in a $30,000 prize pool. 

Bealiba Pony Club secretary Debbie Weir was hopeful of getting the ramp installed as soon as possible.

The club is expecting a bus load of residents from nursing homes in St Arnaud and Maryborough to visit in September.

Mrs Weir said they, like Mr Delgado, had struggled to access the verandah in previous years.

”They are very expensive things, those ramps,” she said.

“We’ve been thinking about it and talking about it for a number of years.

“It’s just been such a big fundraising thing that we haven’t been able to secure any grants for it.”

She said the club heard about the Big Give and thought, “What a perfect thing to aim for.”

The Bealiba Pony Club has 27 riding members, who range in age from 6 to 26 years, and about 40 adult supporters.

“We’ve taken over the club rooms from the Natte-Bealiba Football Club,” Mrs Weir said.

“In 1998 we went there, when the pony club was formed.”

The building has an elevated verandah with concrete steps. 

Mr Delgado said only a few of the steps had hand rails.

“For anybody with a disability that has lack of leg control, it is very hard,” he said.

He said constantly getting up and down from the verandah to follow the action when his son was completing a circuit was too hard. 

Mr Delgado was hopeful the Big Give would help him to better support his son in his riding.

“Dad used to it it all with him – now he has to do a lot of it himself,” he said. 

People can support the ‘Ramp it up for Bealiba Pony Club’ campaign and more than 40 others on the Big Give website.