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Students at Pleasanton's Hart Middle Raise Funds for Danville Wheelchair Group

Article in it’s entirety from Tri-Valley Times on 3/7/2013

PLEASANTON — Robbie Brumm has new found empathy for the disabled after spending a day rolling around school in a wheelchair.

“It was a little more work than I expected,” the 14-year-old said. “You have a different perspective in a wheelchair. Everyone else is able to walk around, but you’re not. Toward the end of the day, I wanted to walk because it was so slow getting around.”

Robbie Brumm, 14, gets one of the wheels of his wheelchair stuck while trying to get around campus at Hart Middle School in Pleasanton on Feb. 27, 2013. Students were given the opportunity to try out some wheelchairs on campus as part of a district wide fundraiser for the Rotary Club and the Wheelchair Foundation. (Dan Honda/Tri-Valley Times Staff)

Brumm was among 42 Hart Middle School students who spent at least half a school day using a wheelchair to get a feel for how disabled people live.

“It lets students experience life in a different way,” leadership teacher Stacy Webb said. “They’ll learn that it’s not easy getting around. It’s good to have the experience of feeling different and the difficulty of getting around.”

Hart students took part in the three-day wheelchair exercise as part of the school district’s campaign to raise money for the Danville-based Wheelchair Foundation. The nonprofit group raises funds to provide wheelchairs for disadvantaged people around the world.

“The district goal is to raise $42,000,” Webb said. “That would buy a crate of wheelchairs or 280 wheelchairs. We’re going to send them all to Guatemala.”

When the foundation offered to loan wheelchairs for students to use, Webb jumped at the chance.

“It will raise awareness,” she said. “Any time we don’t understand something, we tend to joke about it or make fun of it. Hopefully, it will help students understand the situation a little more and be more compassionate about what people in wheelchairs go through every day.”

Eighth-grader Lekha Kesavan signed up to ride in a wheelchair all day to experience life on wheels.

Lekha Kesavan, 13, makes her way through a door in a wheelchair at Hart Middle School in Pleasanton on Feb. 27, 2013. Students got to try out some wheelchairs on campus as part of a districtwide fundraiser for the Rotary Club and the Wheelchair Foundation. (Dan Honda/ Tri-Valley Staff)

“I wanted to know what people in wheelchairs have to deal with every day,” the 13-year-old said. “I was surprised at how dependent I was, especially in the tight aisles in the classroom. It was really hard to push myself. I wasn’t expecting it to be that much trouble. I realized how tough it was to roll myself and to turn.”

“After a while, my arms got sore,” eighth-grader Elena Angst added. “By the end of the day, I figured out ways to maneuver better. It was a good experience.”

The students admitted they often relied on the kindness of classmates for a friendly push and help getting around campus.

“Now that I know what they have to go through, I understand more,” Kesavan said. “I learned how much trouble it is for the disabled to move every day.”

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The Wheelchair Foundation: Giving Hope – Gaining Purpose

This article taken in it’s entirety and written by Jody Morgan appeared in both the Danville Today News as well as the Alamo Today. 
 

The Wheelchair Foundation has delivered nearly 920,000 wheelchairs in over 150 countries since its inception in 2000. As founder Kenneth Behring’s original goal of giving one million wheelchairs to disabled individuals around the world nears fulfillment, global need continues to grow. An estimated 100 million people unable to afford a wheelchair are waiting in hidden corners of the earth for the chance to experience the empowerment of mobility.

Josh Routh connects with a nonagenarian in Tlaquepaque, Mexico, one of many wheelchair recipients from 4-96 years of age hea has met in Latin America. Photo courtesy of Don Routh

Wheelchairs were not among the donation Behring was packing in his private plane in 1999 when LSD Charities (the humanitarian outreach branch of the Latter Day Saints) asked him to drop off their aid packages en route to his African destination  He readily agreed. Included in that cargo were six wheelchairs bound for a hospital in Romania. “Little did I know” he writes, “that those six wheelchairs would change the direction of my life.”

Behring, a successful Danville developer, defines the joy generated by setting a wheelchair recipient’s dreams in motion as the acheivement of purpose. In his 2004 autobiography Road to Purpose, he recount, “I lifted a small Vietnamese girl from the ground and placed her in a wheelchair. In that instant, she found hope…Her face opened into a smile, her eyes as bright as the noontime sky. And I knew for all she had changed in that moment, I had changed even more.”

Initially, Behring explored recycling used wheelchairs. The process proved the reverse of cost-effective. Packaging for shipment added to the expense of parts and labor for repairs. Then Behring asked manufacturers to design a durable wheelchair priced according to the high volume of orders he anticipated. One product seemed perfect, but it required two hours to piece together when uncrated. Today’s model comes in five sizes, ordered with regular or all-terrain tires, and can be assembled in 15 minutes. Averaging shipping costs to all destinations, the Foundation can deliver each wheelchair for just $150.  In Bolivia a comparable product costs $1,700.  In many countries, the price of a wheelchair exceeds an average laborer’s annual income.

The Wheelchair Foundation runs an administratively lean operation, funneling virtually every dollar into providing wheelchairs. Volunteers and service organizations across America do much of the fundraising. Unanimously declaring the positive return on their investment inestimable donors traveling on distribution trips pay their own expenses.  On the receiving end, similar groups arrange local logistics including identification of recipients and appropriate configuration of the wheelchairs they require. They also fund and coordinate transportation to remote locations where wheelchairs are most needed.  Rotary International, with clubs in over 200 countries, is frequently involved in all aspect of the process.

Since Bill Wheeler, founder of Blacktie Transportation, invited them on their first journey, Josh Routh and his father Don have made 20 distribution trips to 11 countries. In the remote town Juigalpa, Nicaragua, they met a 26 year-old woman who had been waiting eight years to acquire the wheelchair she needed to utilize the scholarship to Managua University she earned as a high school honors graduate.  Finally enabled to pursue her studies, she chose psychology so she could hep families coping with disabilities   In poorer places, when one family member is disabled, another often has to stay home from school or work to act as a caregiver.

Josh tears up as he describes a recipient brought to a wheelchair distribution in a wheelbarrow and another crawling through the dust to get there. Born with cerebral palsy, Josh has never walked.  Although doctors predicted he would remain a quadriplegic, never uttering an intelligible word, the 33-year old San Ramon resident drives his own car and lives independently. A cashier at Nob Hill, Josh dedicates much of his time to aiding others.

Hayward students connected with peers in El Salvador by sending wheelchairs and t-shirts.

“When you give someone the gift of mobility, you are giving them freedom and dignity…and when someone has freedom and dignity then they have hope for the future,” explains Don Routh.  Now retired, Don spreads awareness of the worldwide need for the means of mobility and the elation engendered by improving the life of each wheelchair recipient.  One of his initiatives at a Hayward elementary school gave low-income Latino students the opportunity to celebrate joy in their joint accomplishment: raising enough money to send six wheelchairs to less fortunate peers in El Salvador.

Don Routh plans to introduce the program the “Three Amigos” (Don, Josh and Bill) are currently piloting with the Pleasanton Unified School District to additional area school districts this spring. They provide live and video presentations, posters, collection containers, and fundraising ideas. Wheeler offers Blacktie’s community bus free for one field trip per school to either the Blackhawk Museum/Wheelchair Foundation exhibits or a wheelchair sport event.  Ten wheelchairs are available for schools to borrow in rotation for students to test drive or use in fundraising races or sport competitions. For information, email do******@co*****.net

Eva Carleton, Regional Director of Operations of Latin America and the Caribbean, travels on 3-4 distribution trips a year while coordinating the delivery of 40-50 projects. Every working day she helps provide someone with what sh considers a basic human right: a wheelchair.  “Without a wheelchair,” Carleton notes, “you have to ask for everything you need.”  Eva’s mother’s quality of life improved dramatically once she accepted how enabling the device could be. She no longer has to ring for a nurse every time she wants a simple object like a tissue.

In a Colombian community several hours from Bogota, Carleton met a woman who had been unable to work for five years due to a spinal injury.  Thanks to her Foundation wheelchair, she was back at her job.  Minutes later, Eva encountered another wheelchair recipient happily earning money keeping parked cars safe.

“It’s always a joy to give someone a wheelchair and it is an even greater joy to personally watch and hear how that wheelchair improved their life,” explains David Behring, President of the Wheelchair Foundation.  David met Tran Nghia in 2003.  Born with a neurological disorder, the Vietnamese high school student depended on family and friends to carry her everywhere.  She needed a wheelchair to attend university to study English and become a doctor.  The following year David visited her family and they kept in touch.  In November 2012 they met again in Hanoi.  “Nghia unfortunately could not become a doctor due to her disability but she did learn English and translates documents for a Vietnamese company.  … Her smile was as radiant as I remembered it back in 2003.”

A wheelchair recipient with Kenneth Behring (right). Photo courtesy of the Wheelchair Foundation

Kenneth Behring make a point of shaking the hand of every wheelchair recipient.  “All we ask in return is a smile.”  Partnering with non-governmental agencies permits the Wheelchair Foundation to give the gift of mobility with no strings attached.  Creating global friendship and promoting the joy of giving are additional aspects of this non-profit organization’s mission “to deliver a wheelchair to every child, teen, and adult in the world who needs one, but cannot afford one.”

The Wheelchair Foundation’s annual Charity Ball at the Blackhawk Museum February 23rd is open to the public as are all Foundation fundraisers.  Jeff Behring, Director of Special Benefits, offers a Wine for Wheels private party plan getting rave reviews nationwide as a means for finding personal purpose while sharing fun with friends.  To register for the Charity Ball, plan a Wine for Wheels event, learn more about Foundation activities or to make a donation, visit www.wheelchairfoundation.org. Road to Purpose is available at the Danville Library.

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Painting a Picture of Hope

George Sumner

George Sumner signing art posters.

World-renowned artist George Sumner is an environmental impressionist painter known for his marine life art and avid support of ecological causes. His vivid works have found their way into the collections of Muhammad Ali, Ted Turner and Mikhail Gorbachev.

George and his wife/manager, Donnalei, have raised tens of thousands of dollars for the Wheelchair Foundation through the sale of their art. A simple belief that the Sumners share is you can always make a difference; this has been the fuel in their work, life and love together.

It is also the philosophy that recently brought them to Cabo San Lucas – but not for vacation. The couple came to help the Wheelchair Foundation distribute wheelchairs in the poverty-stricken neighborhoods of Mexico that surround the tourist destination.

Several years ago, Cabo experienced a boom in development. Jobs in construction and service work became available to accommodate the rapid growth of large homes and resorts. Hundreds of families moved to the outskirts of town, seeking such opportunities. Economic and environmental factors, however, affected new development and as projects slowed or ceased, the labor needs declined, leaving thousands of people unemployed and unable to earn a living, let alone afford a wheelchair.

George Sumner

Donnalei Sumner (center) and family join the team.

Once outside the tourists areas of Cabo, the poverty is evident. The Sumners joined the wheelchair distribution team as they headed to the barrios where the disabled live in desperately poor conditions without any means of transportation. Here, a wheelchair is an unthought-of luxury.

An elderly woman and her family greeted them at their first stop and welcomed the group into their tiny, well-kept home. The significance of this moment was apparent to everyone. No longer isolated, a grandmother could finally watch her grandchildren play outside; at last, this woman could enjoy a social life that, despite her lack of worldly possessions, would bring a wealth of happiness for years to come.

The Sumners then had an idea to make the occasion even more special. Donnalei handed her husband a set of permanent artist pens with which he painted a beautiful marinescape on the side of the wheelchair.

Blue and green hues stood out vibrantly against the brilliant red, shining wheelchair. When George Sumner had completed his piece, the elderly woman’s face flooded with tears of joy so contagious, no one was immune. More tears were shed as the team said goodbye and set out for the next delivery.

A young girl and her social worker were eagerly awaiting their arrival at their second stop. The girl, now in her late teens, had been born with deformities affecting both of her legs and dreamt of having independence her entire life. The girl’s hair had been styled and her fingernails delicately painted in preparation for today.

“They received a wheelchair, but George and I were the ones who truly got the gift.”

-Donnalei Sumner
on the reward of giving

The incredible significance of this event, like the one before it, was felt by all who were there. After a seemingly endless round of hugs and laughter, the Sumners surprised the already-tearful recipient with a special contribution as George painted another magnificent ocean scene on part of the glistening new wheelchair in which the girl sat, smiling in the sun.

This trip was a life-changing experience, not only for the recipients and their families, but also for the Sumners, who will never forget the overwhelming love shared by so many people. The Wheelchair Foundation was thankful to have the Sumners’ incredible assistance on this distribution and we’re always thankful for the support we get from our donors. George Sumner’s online gallery can be found at www.Sumner-Studios.com.

Mobility is a fundamental human necessity, not a luxury. A wheelchair allows those with disabilities to become a part of society and opens up a world where education, employment, and a better quality of life are possible. Donate today and help the Wheelchair Foundation deliver Hope, Mobility and Independence to the thousands of men, women, and children who still desperately need it.

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Delivering Mobility in Ghana & Mali

Ghana celebrates International Day of People with Disability

December 3rd, 2011 – GHANA, WESTERN AFRICA

It was a long journey, but earlier this week I found myself in the city of Wa, Ghana, in western Africa. We traveled to Wa with our country partners, Ministerial Development and Relief Programme, to participate in Ghana’s celebration of the International Day of People with Disability.

We marched in a parade through the city with an array of people representing all sorts of disability, visual, physical, hearing impaired, etc. It was amazing, and certainly worth the effort to get there. There was only a single wheelchair in the parade, but it was one that had been donated years before by Wheelchair Foundation.

 

Rehabilitation Center in Ghana

December 7th, 2011 – KUMASI, GHANA

Wednesday we found ourselves in Kumasi, Ghana, where we visited a rehabilitation center for abandoned children and adults with disabilities. The center’s director talked with us about the challenges of social stigma in Ghana, and of how families would deliver children to the center and never return.

The center is totally supported through donations, and the 15 wheelchairs we presented to them will make a significant impact on those without mobility. Thanks again to Keegan Resources Inc., and African Gold Group for making this donation possible.

 

Salem Noshie and son, William Wonder

December 8th, 2011 – ACCRA, GHANA

Thursday, we witnessed the true power of modern technology in aid distribution. We presented a wheelchair to Salem Noshie, a woman living in Accra, Ghana, who had suffered a debilitating stroke nearly seven years earlier. She had contacted a woman, Janice, in the United States via the internet. Janice called me to ask if I could help, and I e-mailed her information to our partners on the ground in Accra. They contacted her son, William Wonder, and invited them to a distribution site in Accra.

I met Salem Noshie and William in person on Thursday afternoon. William handed me his mobile phone, and Janice was on the line in the United States and thanked me for helping her friend. It was at that point that I discovered that none of these people had ever met in person before, and the effort to assist Salem Noshie was all through e-mail, text, video chat and phone calls.

It was a great honor and pleasure to make this all come true for a very beautiful and deserving family who had been trying for years to obtain a simple wheelchair for a mother in need.

 

Women of Bamako

December 10th, 2011 – BAMAKO, MALI

On Saturday, we worked with partners AGEMPEM in Bamako, Mali, to distribute wheelchairs to individuals in need of mobility at the CVD Clinic of Mali. Among the many to receive wheelchairs were a group of four women, all of whom arrived on hands and knees and left with new red wheelchairs.

One participant commented, “By making these women mobile and happy, you have made all the women of Mali happy.”

 

Nouhoum Coulibaly and Gordon Holmes with recipients

December 11th, 2011 – SELINGUE, MALI

Sunday, we traveled to Selingue, southwest of Bamako, to distribute wheelchairs to people from surrounding villages. Here we again worked with partner AGEMPEM and members of African Gold Group, who had assisted in identifying recipients in the villages in remote areas where they work. Some recipients traveled 15 or more kilometers for the opportunity to receive their first wheelchairs.

Here, Nouhoum Coulibaly of AGG, and Gordon Holmes of Streetwise, Inc., work with recipients to ensure they understand the proper use of their new wheelchairs, and to hear their stories to better understand the plight of the disabled in rural Mali.

 

 

Disabled people of Bamako

December 11th, 2011 – BAMAKO, MALI

Sunday night, we returned to Bamako with AGEMPEM to continue our work. Interviewing those present, we learn that the cause of many of their disabilities remains a mystery. Some were victims of accidents, some water-borne disease, and some have no explanation.

When we inquire about the availability of mobility devices, most just shrug their shoulders. No money means no wheelchair, and one young man asked us to explain what a wheelchair was, because he had no idea.

 

 

A boy finally receives mobility

December 12th, 2011 – SANANKOROBA, MALI

“It never hurts to ask.”

Our final wheelchair distribution event in Mali occurred in Sanankoroba, south of the capital city of Bamako. We arrived to tribal drumming and women in colorful dress dancing in a wide circle.

As the women stomped in the sand and dust, a young man in a bright green soccer jersey, who was accompanied by his father, caught my eye. He seemed very focused on everything that was happening around him. He was aware of all of the dignitaries in attendance, the media, and the excitement of the crowd. I asked Isaac, the gentleman from AGEMPEM I was working with, what he knew about the boy. He spoke with the woman from the village, who was his primary contact, to get the child’s story.

As it turned out, the young man was a fixture in the village, one of the disabled who was always around. She told us that “He came by her school every day and asked her if she could help him in any way, maybe help him with his legs, which didn’t work.” She reached out to Isaac at about the same time Wheelchair Foundation contacted him about acting as consignee for our shipment of wheelchairs for Mali, nearly a year ago.

So, this day, after more than 12 months of asking at every opportunity, this young man finally got a wheelchair and no longer needs to crawl in the dirt, sand and dust. The evidence of his plight is shown in his face, his hands, knees and legs.

So many people from the village thanked us for delivering wheelchairs to their brothers and sisters that it made my head spin. They consider themselves too far off the map to ever receive aid, and yet we managed to reach them. The joy they shared with us and with one another at this wheelchair distribution was greater than the value of any material gift we could have been given.

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Update from Continuing Promise 2011

Image Courtesy Official U.S. Navy Imagery

ACAJUTLA, El Salvador (July 18, 2011) Lt. Erinn Gelakoska, from St. Louis, fist bumps a Salvadoran child who just received a new wheelchair during a Continuing Promise 2011 community service medical event at the Polideportivo medical site. Continuing Promise is a five-month humanitarian assistance mission to the Caribbean and Central and South America. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Jonathen E. Davis/Released)

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