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November 24, 2004Home medical equipment easier to recycleByRecord-Eagle staff writer Looking for a good home for that used wheelchair, cane or walker? Consider donating it to your local agency on aging, commission on aging, non-profit disability organization or church-based group. Mark Orlikowski, director of patient relations for Bay Home Medical and Rehab in Traverse City, said he gets several calls a year from people who no longer want or need their mobility aids. "I put them in touch with groups that have loan closets, like Easter Seals and Muscular Dystrophy and the (Multiple Sclerosis) Society, which try to dispense them to people who have no insurance or other funds to cover their cost," Orlikowski said. "But several simply don't have the space to store equipment." When that happens, Orlikowski suggests turning to a church-based group that serves as a clearinghouse for equipment, like the national disability ministry Joni and Friends. Founded by disability advocate Joni Eareckson Tada, the organization has collected more than 14,000 wheelchairs nationwide through its Wheels for the World program. The chairs are refurbished by inmates in correctional facilities and shipped to developing nations, where physical therapists fit each chair to a needy disabled child or adult. Don and Cindy Prince of Suttons Bay have been missionaries with the organization for about a year and held their first wheelchair drive in northern Michigan in September. It netted 30 wheelchairs, plus assorted walkers, canes and metal crutches. "All northern Michigan chairs go to Honduras, where they are distributed to people who wouldn't be able to have wheelchairs otherwise," said Cindy Prince. "It would cost them a year's wage to get a wheelchair." The Princes expect to schedule more drives in the region, but collect wheelchairs all year long. For more information, call 271-1300.
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