The World Health Organization estimates that there is a need for 20-30 million wheelchairs around the world. In some of these countries the cost of a wheelchair can equal a year's wages, resulting in the impossibility for people affected by disability to ever receive one. Living in isolation, lacking simple mobility and cut off from life, many of the disabled are also tragically cut off from the local church. As a result, many have never heard the gospel message or experienced the love of Christ.
Wheels for the World aims to meet the physical and spiritual needs of the disabled around the world by providing wheelchairs and sharing the love of Jesus Christ. We also do this by connecting the disabled with the church through creating disabilty awareness and by educating and training the local churches in disability ministry.
By the end of 2008, Wheels for the World plans to have cumulatively distributed 52,342 wheelchairs to 102 countries and have trained hundreds of ministry and community leaders, including people with disabilities. As a result many have placed their trust in Christ, are experiencing new life and purpose with their new mobility, and disability ministry is growing all over the world.
Wheelchair Collection
Dedicated volunteer Chair Corps Area Representatives collect wheelchairs across the United States. You can help us by becoming a volunteer or by organizing or sponsoring a wheelchair drive. You can start a community-wide effort to gather wheelchairs joining with various churches, corporate or business sponsors, with one or two drop-off sites in your community for people to use.
Click here to find if there is a Chair Corps representative in your area.
Transportation
With Wheels for the World collecting 10,000 wheelchairs in 2006, finding transportation for donated wheelchairs, walkers, canes, and crutches to the disabled persons we serve, is an ongoing and increasing need.
Currently we have a limited amount of donated transportation both corporately and individually, but we need help moving wheelchairs within the United States from points of collection to the Restoration Shops to depots. Whether you are a trucker, work in the corporate trucking industry or have some way to help support these transportation needs, you can be a part in delivering the gift of mobility to the least, the lost and the lowest. Please contact:
Susie Hayden
Supervisor Restoration & Transportation
(818) 575-1778
wftw@joniandfriends.org
Wheelchair Restoration
The meticulous restoration of collected wheelchairs takes place in the U.S. by carefully trained inmates in seventeen separate correctional facilities in Colorado, Tennessee, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Kansas, Ohio, Louisiana, Arkansas, and California. With increasing output capabilities at each restoration site, and additional centers planned, Joni and Friends is aggressively addressing the staggering need worldwide.
Wheels for the World currently restores wheelchairs in 17 prisons in 10 different states. These prisons include federal, state, and private institutions. We are actively seeking more locations.
For more information on how to include a Wheels for the World wheelchair restoration shop in your plans to keep inmates busy and at the same time productive:
Click here for a PowerPoint presentation of a typical restoration shop.
Inmates are trained to restore a wheelchair to a like-new condition. The inmates learn to work together, perfect basic mechanical skills, and produce a product of which they can be proud. Hardened inmates have been moved to tears when they see the happiness in a photo of the face of a little boy or girl receiving a wheelchair of their very own. A comment from one inmate was, "Before, when I reached out, it was to take things or hurt people. Now it feels like I've reached halfway around the world through these bars to help someone. I'm giving them something better in life."
Wheels for the World is also restoring some types of rehabilitation equipment.
Download a Wheelchair Restoration Center Supervisor Job Description
Download a list of Rehabilitation Equipment Proposed for Refurbishment
International Mission Outreaches
The wheelchairs are then shipped overseas to meet up with short-term missions teams: Distribution and evangelism teams custom fit each wheelchair specifically for each recipient and train him or her in wheelchair use and upkeep. Team members also give each recipient a Bible and communicate the message of God's love for them. Speaking and teaching teams equip the local churches and communities in disability ministry. Construction teams build accessibility for the disabled, modify homes, churches, and clinics, as well as meeting other construction needs.
Wheelchair Distribution
There are three ways the restored wheelchairs are distributed to disabled individuals living outside the United States. The first is our International Mission Outreaches. The second is through our Harvest Project program, where Joni and Friends partners with other organizations, agencies or churches to provide up to 200 wheelchairs (100 for first time recipients) to be given away to the disabled in other countries. The third is through our individual wheelchair request, where a wheelchair can be shipped to an address in the United States to be given to a disabled person living abroad.
Download a Harvest Project Wheelchair Request Form.
More Information
If you would like more information, want to get your organization involved or simply want to help, contact:
Samuel Buxton
Director, Wheels for the World
Joni and Friends
PO Box 3333 Agoura Hills, CA 91376
(818) 575-1743
sbuxton@joniandfriends.org
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