BROOKINGS Mobility: One simple, dictionary definition calls it the ability to move or be moved freely and easily. That definition is applicable in the United States, where people who use wheelchairs for mobility will usually find them available via a variety of medical and non-medical sources but not so much in some less affluent nations overseas.
Enter Hope Haven International Ministries, home-based in Sioux Falls and with a wheelchair repair shop here in Brookings. HHIM, an agency under the bigger umbrella of Home Haven, has a self-cited goal: to deliver wheelchairs to people in desperate need of them around the world.
To HHIM Director Luke Russell a key word applies to that goal: mobility, which he ties to the Christian mission that HHIM promotes.
Were Christians, he pointed out. We believe in Jesus. We want to help as many people as possible. Overseas, you do not have opportunity with no mobility: and if you cant go to school, you cant get an education. If you dont have mobility, you cant get a job. And we just want to share the love of Christ with as many people as we can.
Hope Haven International Ministries started 30 years ago, Kelly Te Slaa, logistics and volunteer coordinator, explained. There was a need in the Dominican Republic. One of our board members from Hope Haven was on a mission trip and he saw a little girl sitting by the road every day and (he) started asking questions. He realized that she didnt have a wheelchair but she did have a disability. She didnt have a away to get around, so her father would leave her by the field whenever he would go to work. It broke (that board members) heart; so he came back to Hope Haven which at the time was an organization that was a school for children with disabilities in Northwest Iowa.
And he just asked, What are you going to do about it? Theres a need overseas and we should be caring about these people. People have wheelchairs in their garages here in the U.S. We can refurbish them and send them to people who really need them overseas. So we sent two wheelchairs to the Dominican Republic and thats how it started. That small spark flamed into an effort that has sent 150,000 refurbished wheelchairs to 109 developing countries abroad.
We dont send them anywhere in the U.S., Te Slaa said. We have sent them to natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina.
My job is to put the containers together and work with partners overseas to get them the chairs that they need. The partners overseas are the ones that find the people who need the wheelchairs and will help plan teams to go fit the wheelchairs correctly. So we bring therapists, doctors, nurses, pastors, anybody who cares about others. We dont want to just drop things off and leave. We want to see that people are taken care of.
Collect, restore, ship
HHIM has 10 employees, three of them part-time, in the United States. There are seven employees in Romania; one part-time employee in Vietnam; and a partnership with a factory in Nairobi, Kenya, that employs about 30 people. Beyond that its volunteers that get the job done.
Our volunteers are the backbone of what we do, Russell stressed. We could only do a tiny fraction of what we do if not for our volunteers. There are a total of 11 volunteer sites in South Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa. One of those sites is in the South Dakota state penitentiary; one is in Edgerton, Minnesota, and one is in Brookings.
The first need for HHIM is collecting wheelchairs. John MaComb, 73, a lifetime Brookings resident, has worked as an HHIM volunteer for the past 12 years. A 1969 graduate of Brookings High School, he later attended Lake Area Technical Institute, training as an engineering electronics technician and working at Daktronics for 40 years. Working with MaComb had been Chester VanderZee. He was a volunteer with HHIM for 22 years, until his death earlier this year at 93.
Our goal is that we want people to come here and volunteer, MaComb says. Volunteers are welcome: one-time volunteers, occasional volunteers, regular volunteers. If youd like to volunteer, you can make a difference in the lives of people in need. Regular workdays are Tuesday and Thursday mornings, but other days or times are possible.
Were having an open house at our shop, located at 132A Airport Ave., on Tuesday, July 15, from 5 to 8 p.m. Regardless of whether you want to volunteer or not, come to our open house and see what we do. If you cant make it, give me a call at 605-697-7301 and Ill set up a time for a visit.
For those who do volunteer, MaComb will provide on-the-job training for the restoration of collected wheelchairs. His orderly shop with a place for everything and everything in its place has all the tools, parts and materials needed to get down-at-the-heels (wheels?) chairs up and rolling and ready to be shipped and distributed to appreciative people in need.
Russell, whose duties include overseeing a sort of feeder system for the collection of the donated wheelchairs, noted that about 80 percent of the donated wheelchairs can be refurbished and made serviceable. Those that cant be saved will be cannibalized for parts and then discarded. MaComb presently has about 15 hes working on and about 15 restored and ready to roll.
Russell explained that a shipment of as many as 250 wheelchairs would be doable and appropriate because of the logistics demanded. Sometimes, if a team of partners isnt available at the overseas location, a team from the United States could accompany the shipment to ensure the correct fitting of the wheelchairs.
Additionally, he noted: What we found is that there were never enough pediatric wheelchairs. So HHIM is having them made to its specifications in the United States, with the end product being a wildly durable wheelchair. We need mobility items; we need as many wheelchairs as we can get.
John (MaComb) is fixing a tire here, Russell said, noting some work in progress at the Brookings shop. That tire will change someones life; and it will change the familys life. It matters so much. Mobility is very, very important. What were trying to show is love for people.
If you have a disability overseas, a lot of times your family is seen as cursed, the entire family, Te Slaa added. People with disabilities are viewed as broken. To give them something that shows people care about them, thats what we do.
Russell came to HHIM after 20 or more years as an accountant and chief financial officer, where at a certain point (he) was just making rich people richer.
I wanted to do something that mattered, he added. Like John and Kelly, we want to help people. Thats the bottom line.
Contact John Kubal at [email protected].
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