My Road to Purpose

I know something about suffering, and I know something about hope. 

In 2000, I went to Viet Nam to distribute wheelchairs to physically disabled people. Our party travelled to a small village outside of Hanoi to deliver a wheelchair to a little girl, Bui Thi Huyen. Because of her disability, she had never been able to move herself. She sat terrified and crying on a pile of old rags in her parents’ house. I gave her lollipops, but that did not seem to help. We put her in a wheelchair outside and I showed her how to place her hands on the wheel rims and to move around. She was frightened and tearful, but finally she moved the wheelchair by herself. Then she broke into the biggest smile I have ever seen. All of us around her clapped and cheered.  In a few moments, we had transformed a girl on a pile of rags into a girl who could move about on her own, opening up a whole new life to her. We had given her mobility, freedom, and hope.

That was not the first time I had seen suffering, nor will it be the last. I grew up in the United States in the Great Depression, and saw families suffer from lack of food and shelter. My own parents had lost their farm. But it was not until I witnessed terrible physical suffering in the world that I decided to try to do something about it. I came out of the Depression a very determined and driven young man.

I grew up in rural Wisconsin. And to help make money for my family and myself, I cut grass, delivered newspapers and worked in local stores. My first job after college was selling cars; eventually, I scraped together enough money to open a used car dealership. Soon, through hard work, I opened other dealerships and was on my way to a successful career. By the time I was 30 years old I had sold my business, made my first fortune and had lived the American dream. But that was just the beginning. Seeking warmer weather, I moved to Florida, where I started to build a house for my wife Pat and my five sons. When someone offered to buy it at a big profit before it was finished, I sold it and discovered the potential of the home-building business. In Florida and later in California, I made another fortune in home-building. By the time I was 65, I owned a huge mansion, my own private jet plane and even a professional football team, the Seattle Seahawks. I had everything so everyone thought.

To the outside world, I was a rich, successful businessman, but inside I felt empty. I had all the money I could ever want, all the accomplishments I could ever achieve, and yet something was missing. Material possessions and success did not make me happy or fulfilled. I felt my life had no meaning, no true purpose. At the time, I was flying around the world on my jet, making frequent trips to Africa on hunting safaris. On those trips, my guides would take me to visit schools and health clinicsfacilities that often operated in poor conditions so I began taking medical and school supplies to them on my trips. When charitable organizations learned that I was making these deliveries, one asked me to bring a load of food and supplies to Eastern Europe. The shipment included about half a dozen wheelchairs.

At a stop in Romania, the relief workers invited me on their delivery to a hospital. The director introduced me to an elderly man who had suffered a stroke and could not walk any more. I told him I had brought him a wheelchair so that he would be able to move on his own again. When I helped lift him into the wheelchair, he started to cry.  Through his tears, he explained that he would be free to leave his house to visit with his neighbours when he returned home. All I could say to him was, “I’m happy we could help you”. I was deeply moved. I was stunned that this man and others like him were denied the smallest pleasures – to go outside, sit in the sun, talk with friends – because of their disabilities. The simple gift of a wheelchair had transformed the man’s life.

And it transformed mine. After my trip to Viet Nam and another one to deliver wheelchairs to Guatemala, I decided to start the Wheelchair Foundation. For a small donation, we would deliver a wheelchair to a physically disabled person anywhere in the world. I had found my purpose.  Today, with the support of the United States Government and many non-profit organizations, including the Rotary Clubs and the Knights of Columbus, we are the largest international charitable organization doing this work. Since 2000, we have delivered nearly 400,000 wheelchairs in more than 130 countries.

This mission has brought me in contact with some of the most amazing, inspiring and courageous people on earth:  Xie Yanhong, a Chinese citizen who was born without the use of his legs and who used his wheelchair to travel to England, where he became the first physically disabled person to swim the English Channel; a man in Afghanistan who lost his legs in a landmine explosion and who wanted a wheelchair so that he could go back to work to support his wife and six children; a blind boy in Mexico named Angel, who left me speechless when he told me after we gave him a wheelchair, “I will see you in heaven”; and in South Africa, Nelson Mandela, who is a member of our international Board of Advisors, as are King Juan Carlos of Spain and Mikhail Gorbachev of the Russian Federation.  [You can read more about these incredible people, their stories and the work of the Wheelchair Foundation in my autobiography, Road to Purpose, published in 2004.]

With the Wheelchair Foundation now well established (https://rep.iqj.mybluehost.me), my newest philanthropic cause is clean water. Water sustains life, and safe drinking water is an absolute precondition for overall health and well-being. Many people in developing countries end up in wheelchairs because of unclean water.  According to the United Nations, almost 1.1 billion people have inadequate access to safe water and 2.6 billion are without appropriate sanitation. In real-life terms, that means that 4 of every 10 people in the world do not have access to basic sanitation and nearly 2 in 10 have no source of safe drinking water.

Recognizing that Governments alone cannot address the world’s growing water and sanitation crisis, I have started the WaterLeaders Foundation (http://www.waterleaders.org), which will strive to elevate water and sanitation issues to a more prominent level of global concern to attract serious and sustained funding levels across donors, foundations and the public and private sectors. Its efforts will also focus on resources and organizations in order to maximize their impact. For example, it will initially focus on efforts to deliver appropriate clean drinking water purification technologies to schools in need. Currently, it is researching
small water treatment systems, utilizing ultra filtration, distillation and reverse osmosis, and supporting prototype design and development.

WaterLeaders plans to have a suite of lightweight, durable, low-energy and low-cost technologies available within the next year to deploy in the most cost-effective manner to the appropriate communities. Its initial pilots will be located in China, with expansion to Mexico, Africa and other high priority global regions in need. Finally, WaterLeaders will collaborate with institutions with an interest in water and sanitation to include the development of joint projects and public/private partnerships and offer a clearinghouse of best practices from the field. This effort will include linking together organizations, such as donors, foundations, non-governmental organizations, communities and other stakeholders, to help them achieve their goals.

Our work delivering wheelchairs is far from over, unfortunately.  And our work in providing people with clean, safe water is just beginning. But my journey on my “road to purpose” continues. I hope you will join me on the trip.

Kenneth E. Behring is founder of the Wheelchair Foundation, the WaterLeaders Foundation, the Blackhawk Museum and the Behring-Hofmann Educational Institute.  The owner of the football team, he also established the Seattle Seahawks Charitable Foundation, which benefits children’s charities. He has pledged millions of dollars to the Smithsonian Museum, receiving the prestigious James Smithson Award in recognition of his generosity and vision.  Mr. Behring has made it his personal mission to help those in need, donating food, medical supplies, clothing and educational materials, in the most impoverished nations.

Reprinted with permission of UN Chronicle