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Italian Cajun Wine For Wheels Party

Andy & Jackie Duhon invite you to a Italian Cajun Wine for Wheels Party at their home in Garland, Texas. For additional information call Jackie at (214) 883-8410.

What happens when you get an Italian to host a party? Fun! Get together with friends for an evening, and at the same time positively change someone’s life!
 
The Dallas Chapter of The Wheelchair Foundation is hosting an evening of Wine, Food and Fun to raise money for people in need of mobility in third world countries like Haiti and Chile.
 
Most of us take the ability to get around for granted, but imagine having to drag yourself along the ground to go anywhere. With Wine for Wheels, every $1 raised goes directly to the purchase and delivery of a Wheelchair for a person in need.
 
For the event just bring a special bottle of wine to share (it does not have to be expensive), and a $25 per person or more donation. Please pay online or by cash or check payable to the Wheelchair Foundation at the event. All donations are tax deductible.
 
Great food will be served.
Dress Casual.
 
To make a difference and have an enjoyable evening, please join us. If you were at our last event you know how much fun it was, and that we raised enough to buy approximately 100 wheelchairs. We need your help to to it again.
 
Watch this three minute video on the Wheelchair Foundation mission. www.wheelchairfoundation.org/deliveries_videos/embedded_video.php? video_id=12&video_type=revver
 
If you cannot attend, but still would like to donate, donate online below or send check made out to the Wheelchair Foundation and mail it to Andy & Jackie at 913 Clack Drive, Garland, TX 75044.
 
General Admission: $25
VIP Admission: $75
Sellout Max:  150

Saturday, April 17th, 2010
7PM-10PM

913 Clack Drive, Garland, TX 75044
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A Letter From Charles R. Cook from the Rotary Club of Soldotna, AK

On behalf of the Masaya, Nicaragua; Soldotna Alaska, Foster City California, and Marion N.C. Rotary Clubs we would like to thank The Wheelchair Foundation for their commitment to provide Wheelchairs to the world. This successful project could not have happened without everyone working together! This project included an eight member team from Soldotna, Alaska Rotary Club, as well as a seven member team from Marion, N.C. and the Nicaraguan Rotary Clubs of Granada, Jinotepe, Managua (x2), Somoto, and Leon, assisted Masaya’s Rotary Club with 100 percent participation. Other organizations that assisted the Rotary Clubs were New Songs and Project H.O.P.E. coming together to make this project a success. This is what a Project is all about; people coming together and serving above themselves! We have impacted several thousand peoples’ lives and forever imbedded the banner “Serve Above Self” into everyone. The gift of mobility provides more than just the increased confidence, it also improves independency, an all around better quality of life and, it helps people take an active role to be a positive member of society.

Thank you all for all that you do, as well as the opportunity to serve Humanity,

Chuck Cook
Soldotna Rotary Club Representative

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Make Buildings Accessible To The Challenged

The Vice-President, Mr John Dramani Mahama, has directed institutions responsible for issuing permits for public buildings not to do so for buildings that are not designed to make them accessible to the physically challenged.

 

The Vice-President, Mr John Dramani Mahama, has directed institutions responsible for issuing permits for public buildings not to do so for buildings that are not designed to make them accessible to the physically challenged. 

He said although the Disability Law had been promulgated, permits were still issued on buildings which had disregarded the needs of people with physical challenges. 

Mr Mahama gave the directive when he presented more than 100 wheelchairs and accessories to physically challenged persons in Tamale at the weekend. 

The items were donated by the Wheelchair Foundation based in the United States of America (USA) and the Rotary Club of Tamale to better the lives of the vulnerable. 

He recalled that the Mills government, after the passage of the law, directed that all public building should be designed to give access to the challenged, but noted that the directives had not been strictly adhered to. 

“I want to reiterate the directive by President Mills that those responsible for giving permits, as well as architects and designers, must make room for such buildings,” he stressed. 

The Vice-President expressed concern about how people, particularly schoolchildren, had to struggle on daily basis to gain access to public buildings and their schools, adding that “I therefore asked for the strict enforcement of that law.” 

Mr Mahama appealled to parents not to confine their physically challenged children to the streets to beg for alms, stressing that the role of such children was not to beg, but they should be allowed to reach their full potential in terms of education. 

He said education had been made free from the basic to the university level for challenged children and urged parents to take advantage of that gesture and send their children to school, stressing that “parents of the disabled have no excuse now not to send their children to school”. 

Mr Mahama noted that physically challenged persons had contributed a lot to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) hence the need to support their course. 

He said there were a lot of challenged persons who were contributing significantly to all sectors of the economy and stressed the need for the public “to change our perception about people with disability”. 

The Northern Regional Minister, Mr Bukari Moses Mabengba, commended the Rotary Wheelchair Foundation of Rotary International for the donation. 

He said his outfit was committed to harnessing all productive labour, including the physically challenged, in order to build a better Ghana, adding that no section or group would be marginalised in the society. 

The President of the Rotary Club of Tamale, Mr Joseph A. Mumuni, said the Rotary Club of Tamale and its partners had spent more than $1.6 million over the past two years in the areas of health, water and sanitation in the three northern regions. 

SOURCE: Graphic Ghana

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East Bay Regional Park District Begins New Online Series Adventures with Wheelchair Hiker/Motivational Speaker, Bob Coomber

Oakland, CA – The East Bay Regional Park District has partnered with wheelchair hiker and motivational speaker Bob Coomber, aka 4WheelBob, to provide an online hiking series geared toward accessible hiking trails, titled “Adventures with 4WheelBob.” Coomber will profile flat or slightly graded trails in the East Bay Regional Park District that can accommodate wheelchairs, mobility devices, parents with strollers, young children on bikes, or anyone looking for a pleasant place to enjoy nature and the outdoors. As an added bonus, Coomber will also highlight a “challenge” hike of greater length and ability. Adventures with 4WheelBob can be found on the East Bay Regional Park District’s website under a Feature (photo) box on the right side of the webpage or by typing www.ebparks.org/bobcoomber. Additional hikes will be updated monthly on the website.

Coomber is well-known in the East Bay as an active hiker, writer, and speaker. He became disabled after a long struggle with diabetes caused severe and irreversible osteoporosis. A lifelong hiker, Bob soon began experimenting with easy outdoors excursions and has become a staple of local newspaper and television shows – that guy in a wheelchair who won’t believe in limits. He’s also been featured in national news on the CBS “Early Show”, ABC’s “World News with Charles Gibson” and the Hallmark Channel.

On August 24, 2007 Coomber became the first person in a wheelchair to summit California’s third highest peak, 14,246’ White Mountain. He is also the first in a wheelchair to summit two local favorites, Mt. Diablo and its companion, North Peak, as well as Mission Peak in Fremont.

He has been very involved with the East Bay Regional Park District serving as a volunteer ambassador and as an appointed member of the Park Advisory Committee. “A day in our Regional Parks provides a chance to get close to nature, encourage exercise and enable all who venture onto a trail to take in a thousand wonders. I hope to see a lot of people take advantage of the amazing trails and sights and sounds of each of our Regional Parks,” says Coomber.

Coomber was inducted into the California Outdoors Hall of Fame in January, 2007. He was one of only 27 Americans to receive the President’s Council on Physical Fitness Community Leadership Award in 2008. In October of 2010, Bob plans to summit Africa’s highest peak, Kilimanjaro, and be the first unassisted wheelchair to make the journey. The trip will also serve to distribute 200 wheelchairs in Arusha, Tanzania, in partnership with The Wheelchair Foundation of Danville.

SOURCE: East Bay Regional Park District

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East Bay foundation gives the gift of mobility

DANVILLE, CA (KGO) — A wheelchair can mean the difference between being bed-ridden or leading a productive life. But in many parts of the world, cost keeps them out of the hands of people who need them. One East Bay charity is hoping to make a difference two wheels at a time.

On the island of San Pedro in Belize, artist Kurt Jason Cruz was attacked in 2006. It left him completely paralyzed.

“I got stabbed in my lower back and neck and was paralyzed for four months and I couldn’t even move from neck down,” he said.

He has regained some mobility, and can now get around thanks to the Danville-based Wheelchair Foundation. The non-profit has given away hundreds of thousands of wheelchairs over the past decade to people in need all over the world. The idea began with developer Ken Behring. Now his sons have taken up the cause.

“The most important thing is to be able to give personally,” said Jeff Behring.

The Behrings organize trips around the world so donors can hand over the wheelchairs in person.

“I think year after year the people that have gone on our wheelchair missions in the past always want to repeat themselves, so we’re getting a larger and larger number of people who want to go with us and personally participate and put people in wheelchairs and give them the gift of mobility,” said Jeff Behring.

“When you see the smiles and tears — I get very emotional,” said David Behring. “When somebody starts crying out of joy, I usually end up breaking down with the family.”

The Wheelchair Foundation buys specially designed wheelchairs in China for about $150.

“They don’t have the money and the resources,” said David Behring. “Many of these people make less than a thousand dollars a year, and in these countries a wheelchair can cost anywhere from $400 to $700.”

Volunteers say seeing the joy in the eyes of those who get a wheelchair is like no experience they have ever had.

“All of a sudden when you put them in a wheelchair you can feel that, you can feel the change, you feel the desire to live and wanting to be and embracing life and do things and it’s just an amazing thing to experience, but it’s an amazing thing to feel,” said volunteer Glenn Perry.

The Wheelchair Foundation is now trying to raise money for 2,000 wheelchairs to send to the devastated regions of Haiti. Every $75 donation is matched and improves the life of one person.

For more information on how you can help, visit www.wheelchairfoundation.org.

SOURCE: ABC 7 KGO-San Francisco

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