The Wheelchair Foundation will start the New Year by delivering 940 desperately needed wheelchairs to poor and disabled Palestinians and Israelis in the conflict-ravaged Mideast region. Beginning January 1, representatives of the Foundation will travel to Gaza City and then on January 4 to a small town near Tel Aviv, Israel where they will personally deliver the devices to medical authorities for immediate use, including by severely disabled children. Wheelchair Foundation, with a volunteer delegation of physical and occupational therapists in tow, will make its first delivery of 840 wheelchairs to the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund and the Ministry of Social Affairs and Ministry of Health in Gaza, an area where some 3,500 people live with physical disabilities and the average person lives on merely $3 (U.S.) a day. The Foundation then travels to Zerfin, near Tel Aviv, where it will distribute another 100 wheelchairs at the Assaf Harofeh Medical Center. Half of the wheelchairs scheduled for delivery in Zerfin are specially-equipped to correct spinal curvatures.

Wheelchairs are being donated strictly based on need without any regard to the recipients’ political or diplomatic stance in the region’ s ongoing conflict, said noted U.S. philanthropist Ken Behring, who founded the nonprofit organization this summer and just recently donated $80 million to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

“This is about nothing other than helping make life more livable for some world citizens who struggle daily with mobility,” Behring said. “We are a humanitarian organization, not a political entity. All we are concerned with is who needs wheelchairs and where do we deliver them.”

Behring added, “It is amazing the difference a wheelchair can make in the life of someone living with a disability. Those of us who have full use of our limbs take for granted our ability to get around from place to place. But for someone facing this kind of physical challenge, a wheelchair is not just a means of transport; it’s a connection to the world. A wheelchair can enrich some people’s lives more than many of us could ever know.”

The wheelchairs are desperately needed, said Erica Reiter, of the California-based Friends of Assaf Harofeh, which helps raise funds for the Israeli hospital. “Even with limited funds for equipment, the hospital serves some of the poorest people in Israel and is in an area with one of the fastest growing populations. Because the demand for these chairs is much greater than the supply, the Wheelchair Foundation’s gift is a much-needed boon for the hospital. It will be particularly helpful for the hospital’s pediatric and geriatric patients.”

The upcoming deliveries to Israel are part of an overall effort by Wheelchair Foundation to deliver more than 1 million wheelchairs around the globe in the next five years. Some 22,000 wheelchairs have already been delivered or pledged to 68 countries, thanks to the nonprofit’s work since its inception. This year alone, the Foundation has delivered wheelchairs to places like Vietnam, Botswana, Guatemala, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Romania, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

The foundation has already attracted significant support. The International Board of Advisors is co-chaired by King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia of Spain and includes former French President Valery Giscard d’Estaing, former President of South Africa Nelson Mandela and U.S. Senator Bill Frist (R-Tenn.).

Anyone can assist Wheelchair Foundation in its work. With a donation of $150, the Foundation will purchase, ship and deliver a wheelchair to someone in need. It is estimated that more than 100 million people worldwide need wheelchairs.

For more information about Wheelchair Foundation or to make a donation, call (877) 378-3839 or visit www.wheelchairfoundation.org.