Join Wheelchair Foundation this Sunday, July 30th at
Stella’s Ristorante located at 3451 Blackhawk Plaza Rd. in Danville, California for
“Wheelchairs For Jalisco Dinner”
Call (925) 263 – 2112 for details and reservations
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Josh Burroughs in Shanghai, China, at the
official handover of wheelchairs sponsored by his Rotary club, the Rotary Club of San Jose, California, for the 2010 World Expo.
Josh Burroughs began his legacy of supporting Wheelchair Foundation in his college days at Cal Poly State University in San Luis Obispo, California. In August of 2008, Josh was a team leader among a group of students who traveled to Peru to distribute 400 wheelchairs. The students purchased these 400 wheelchairs through a year’s worth of work as a class project. Josh was totally overwhelmed by the powerful, life-changing experience of placing someone in a wheelchair, and from that point on, committed to continuing this wonderful work.
In the fall of 2009, Josh again traveled with Dr. Lynn Metcalfe, Professor of Marketing and humanitarian, and fellow students whom she had challenged, guided and encouraged to become philanthropic. This time they flew to Oaxaca, Mexico, to deliver 400 more wheelchairs they had purchased.
Following graduation from Cal Poly, and still smitten by his desire to make a difference in the world, Josh joined the Rotary Club of San Jose, California, and began a career with Barry Swenson Builders. Through his business and Rotary connections, Josh has helped fund and organize distributions in Shanghai, China, and Bangladesh, where Josh and fellow Rotarians visited community centers, hospitals and homes to deliver the gifts of hope and mobility directly to recipients.
Josh in Oaxaca, Mexico, as a Cal Poly student.
This spring, San Jose Rotarians and Wine for Wheels worked in partnership with the Forever Love Foundation and the Department of Social Development and Welfare to arrange wheelchair distributions in Chiang Mai, Bangkok and Chon Buri Provinces in Thailand. Ceremonies were held at rehabilitation centers, a veteran’s hospital, individual homes and a home for the disabled. These home deliveries were especially emotional, allowing the Rotarians to witness first-hand how wheelchairs would help the recipient and family members around their home.
Josh is back to work, championing a new project to send wheelchairs to Croatia. He is a shining example of the philanthropic spirit of a new generation and of how just one person can make a huge difference in the world by helping others and changing lives.
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 RouthWheelchairs 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 FoundationKenneth 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.
Gordon Holmes, owner of Lookout Ridge Winery in Glen Ellen, believes that wine can change a life.
Over 150 million children, teens and adults worldwide are in need of a wheelchair but cannot afford one. The Holmes family, owners of Lookout Ridge Winery in Glen Ellen, wants to change that statistic.
“For every bottle of Lookout Ridge current release wines and for every case of library wines, our “Wine for Wheels” program will donate a wheelchair to a needy individual,” owner Gordon Holmes said. “We believe you can buy a bottle and change a life.”
The price of a bottle of current release wine is $100 and one case of Library wines is $600.
There is also a personal reason for this crusade to give back mobility to those that have lost it because of war, disease, accident or natural disaster. His wife, Kari, was stricken with multiple sclerosis years ago and is confined to a wheelchair.
Holmes, a self-described Wall Street capitalist, said the “Wine for Wheels” program began to germinate about three years ago. He works with the Wheelchair Foundation, which has given nearly 800,000 wheelchairs in the last 10 years. The winery places an order, the wheelchairs are made in China and distributed by non-governmental agencies. Most of the wheelchairs go out of the United States because the want is greater in places where there are no social service agencies to help.
“The need is so great,” he said. “And wine is a catalyst.”
Holmes’ approach to winemaking is a little untraditional.
“Traditional wineries have one winemaker making several different varietals,” he said looking down over his hillside vineyard of Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah. “I look at our winemaking like a portfolio of nine experts, each crafting their own passion into making
spectacular wine.”
He also showcases the winemaker with his or her name on the front label. Last year the winery produced 100 cases and this year Holmes plans to raise that to 800 cases.
“I’m in the business of the impossible and giving away a $100 wheelchair is impossible,” he said. “I couldn’t do it alone. My mission is to inspire others.
“We are so fortunate to live in a country with no war, no land mines to destroy lives and self reliance,” Holmes said. “We need to count our blessings.”
SOURCE: SF Examiner
Antioch Rotary will be having their first Wine for Wheels event on June 5, 2010 in Antioch. For more information, email Allen Payton at ro****@ad******.com
Hor’s deouvres will be provided by the hostess and local restaurants…
Regular Wine for Wheels format applies… a $25 or more donation requested with a bottle of wine to share, or a non-alcoholic beverage, if you prefer. And just so you know, every $75 donation will be matched to deliver a wheelchair until we reach 1,000,000 wheelchairs. So, help us deliver that one millionth chair.
General Admission: $25
Sellout Max: 100
Saturday, June 5, 2010
5PM-9PM
205 Hillside Road, Antioch, CA
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