Posted: 09/20/2005 at 8:19am | IP Logged

President Bush Praises Free Wheelchair Mission 

By Mark Ellis
Senior Correspondent, ASSIST News Service

COSTA MESA, CALIFORNIA (ANS) -- It took some doing to get the unusual-looking mobility device past security and into the Oval Office. But the simple wheelchair seen in America’s highest office is now offering hope for thousands with disabilities living in poverty around the world.

“I insisted on bringing a wheelchair with me,” says Dr. Don Schoendorfer, founder of Free Wheelchair Mission. When Dr. Schoendorfer first got the call from the White House he thought it was probably a joke. It seems the mechanical engineer’s invention caught the eye of the Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives and within the week Schoendorfer was standing in President Bush’s office, showing the president his innovative device. (Pictured: Don Schoendorfer with his inexpensive wheelchair).

Since 1999, Free Wheelchair Mission and their partners have given the gift of mobility to over 70,000 disabled in 46 countries. The non-profit organization hopes to distribute 20 million wheelchairs by 2010 to the poorest of the poor in developing countries.

Dr. Schoendorfer’s meeting at the White House lasted about 20 minutes. “He’s into biking,” notes Schoendorfer. “He could see the logic of using mountain bike tires in rugged terrain.” Most conventional wheelchairs start in the $500 range, but Dr. Schoendorfer’s simplified version is manufactured in China for about $40. All the wheelchairs are given to needy recipients at no cost.

The President asked Dr. Schoendorfer if any wheelchairs were sent to Afghanistan. “I told him there were two containers stuck in Pakistan for the last 18 months.” Local officials were demanding a bribe to release the shipment, something Dr. Schoendorfer refused to do. (Pictured: Recipients of free wheelchairs).

“He asked what we’d done to solve the problem,” Dr. Schoendorfer recalls.

“I told him we were just little guys and we didn’t know anybody. We tried a couple things and nothing was working. We didn’t want to pay a bribe.”

“He said, ‘No, no, don’t ever pay a bribe,” Dr. Schoendorfer says. President Bush offered to help, saying he would have someone look into the problem.

Two weeks later the wheelchairs were suddenly released and arrived safely in Afghanistan. Later, Dr. Schoendorfer called James Towey, Director of the Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives. “I asked him if they had anything to do with it,” he says. Towey admitted they “looked into it.”

Dr. Schoendorfer earned a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and spent his career working on medical diagnostic equipment, among other projects. Yet he felt most of his working life lacked significance, and he wanted to give back something to others.

His vision for the wheelchairs started almost 30 years ago on a trip to Morocco, when he and his wife Laurie watched a disabled woman pull herself across a dirt street with her hands and arms, her fingernails clawing the dusty road. Haunted by the disturbing image, it fueled his personal crusade to create the world’s most inexpensive wheelchair.

Schoendorfer began tinkering in his garage in his free time in the late ’90s. At the same time, God was leading him into a closer walk of faith. “I was a Christian by training,” he admits, although his faith didn’t run very deep. “Being trained as a scientist and engineer I was dependant on whatever I could come up with for solutions.”

As he worked on his part-time project, he noticed it was mostly Christians offering to help. Moreover, opportunities unfolded as he worked that seemed different than ones he encountered in his regular career.

At the same time, his teenage daughter struggled with a medical condition he felt powerless to control. “I realized I had to give this up to someone more powerful than me.” One day he was listening to a message from First Corinthians about God’s love. “It was profound to me and I thought this makes so much sense,” he recalls. The deepening of his faith made him more committed to his task.

After he created the first 100 wheelchairs in his garage, he found out about a short-term medical mission to India sponsored by his church. The team was looking for doctors and nurses to do basic field medicine in rural India, not engineers with unproven inventions. “I buffaloed my way into the whole program,” he recalls. “Nobody could understand how this was going to work. They humored me and allowed me to bring four of my wheelchairs along.”

As the team worked at a clinic in Chennai, a Hindu man arrived for help carrying his seven-year-old son, stricken with cerebral palsy. The man walked three miles to the clinic carrying his disabled son. They sat the young boy in the wheelchair, and his face lit up immediately. Still, other team members had to be convinced the chair could be successfully maneuvered at the man’s home.

With coaxing, everyone climbed into a bus and headed back to the man’s home. “The father worked on a farm and the boy slept in a little box on the floor with a few dirty blankets,” Dr. Schoendorfer recalls. They found the wheelchair could easily fit inside the front doorway, and was perfect for traversing the rugged terrain surrounding the man’s home.

This predominantly Hindu village had been off-limits to the medical team on previous trips. “They hadn’t been welcome in this community before,” Dr. Schoendorfer notes. A small crowd began to gather around the wheelchairs, and one member of the medical team began to share from the scriptures about Jesus’ compassion for the disabled.

“People were fascinated and wanted to listen,” Dr. Schoendorfer says. “Suddenly the lights went on—that these wheelchairs could open doors,” he says. He felt his leading from God was confirmed. The wheelchairs could be a wonderful tool for overseas missions.

This year, Free Wheelchair Mission will distribute 100,000 of their chairs around the world. They also develop creative partnerships with like-minded mission organizations and humanitarian groups—anyone willing to embrace their vision to give the wheelchairs freely to any in need.

Standing in a village in Chennai several years ago, Dr. Schoendorfer had no idea he would speak to the president face-to-face in the Oval Office some day. “President Bush told me our organization makes him proud to be an American—it made me feel very blessed.”