Sweet sixteen lifts six lives! – Fundraiser story from Oklahoma

Thanks so much to this proud mother for sharing an inspirational story of one person making a difference!

This year marked my daughter’s sixteenth birthday.  For almost a year, Katelin has talked about donating three wheelchairs to Free Wheelchair Mission instead of receiving gifts on her big day. So, for her Sweet 16^th,
I planned a party for all her friends.  On the invitations, I explained to the guests about FWM and how Katelin wanted to donate wheelchairs instead of receiving gifts.

Well, it was a huge success!  Several friends donated money directly to the website, enough for two chairs; at her party, ALL of her birthday cards contained money for wheelchairs!  Enough that we were able to buy four more chairs! Katelin was so excited.  Not only did her wish come true, but she doubled her goal!

My daughter is special not just for her kind and generous heart but because she is our miracle child.  Katelin has an area on her brain that causes seizures; at the age of 12, she faced the possibility of a brain surgery that could have left her in a wheelchair for the rest of her life. We believe that by the power of prayer God healed her to the point that the surgery was not necessary, and Katelin has been seizure free for two years.  Some time ago, she felt the call from God leading her into mission work. My daughter feels that her efforts to raise wheelchairs for Free Wheelchair Mission are the first step in her journey and she will continue to raise money for many different mission needs.  Katelin has been a competitive cheerleader since the age of four; she only took a break for about four months even when she was facing the surgery. Now she competes, cheers at her high school, drives a car AND works with the kids in our church!

“Now my daughter will finally get a chance.” – Recipient Story from Zambia

Thanks so much to our founder and president, Don Schoendorfer, for bringing back this inspirational story from his recent travels to Zambia!

Last month, I traveled to Zambia with World Vision and three doctoral candidates enrolled in Azusa Pacific University’s physical therapy program. We delivered the first 500 of the 6,000 wheelchairs we plan to distribute over the next year in collaboration with World Vision, and developed additional video materials and training manuals for the GEN_2.  While there, we met a very special little girl:

Beauty is her name.  She is five years old.  She lives with her grandmother in the tiny village of Mwachiele.   In addition to malnutrition and possibly other developmental disabilities, Beauty suffers from club feet.  She walks on the sides of her ankles, and with each step, flashes of pain shoot across her face.  Her grandmother has carried her everywhere, taking her to a World Vision clinic about twice a month.  The possibility of getting Beauty to school each day has been out of the question.

Beauty weighs 25 pounds, which is small for most wheelchairs; however, with some simple modifications, she was very comfortable in her new GEN_2.  Her mother told us that she was intensely shy and having a dozen strangers visiting did not help.  We wanted to take Beauty’s photograph in her brand new wheelchair, but the best images we could get were of her big brown eyes.  She looked somber, but her mother recognized gladly that a world of opportunities was opening up for her daughter in the gift of a wheelchair.

“Beauty has had little ability to be part of the community or participate in any events,” she said.  “Now my daughter will finally get a chance.”