Despite gray clouds overhead, volunteers for Joni and Friends in Knoxville, Tennessee, gladly waited on Monday, Sept. 30, outside the commercial building where donated wheelchairs, walkers and crutches had been stored.

“We have been collecting this load for about two years,” said Lauren Richardson, the ministry’s area director. She motioned for the truck driver to park in front of where the donated items were already being staged. “Hopefully, everything will fit in this 53-foot semi-trailer,” she said.

A group of young men from University of Tennessee’s Sigma Chi Fraternity lifted equipment into the truck and carefully arranged the load that would soon be heading to the South Central Correctional Facility in Clifton, Tenn.

Since 1979, Joni and Friends, the organization started by Joni Eareckson Tada after a diving accident left her a quadriplegic, has advocated for those living with disabilities and their families. Part of its thriving global ministry includes the Wheels for the World program that has donated over 235,000 wheelchairs, restored to like-new condition, and given to those in need in less resourced countries.

Donated wheelchairs and mobility equipment are dropped off at offices or through collection events and stored until they can be shipped to one of the program’s restoration centers located in prisons within the United States. Once there, inmates who have applied to work in the program begin to clean and restore the equipment. When a wheelchair project is complete, inmates sign their name on a “Given in love by Joni and Friends” sticker they place on the wheelchair.

“I visited the prison in Clifton, Tennessee, where we send the donated chairs and saw the whole process,” Richardson told the team of volunteers, who ranged from college students to senior citizens. “I had the opportunity to talk with one of the inmates who was part of the program. He told me, ‘It was a wheelchair that got me into prison, and now it’s a wheelchair that’s giving me hope.’”

Richardson recounted the conversation, sharing that a fall from a ladder caused severe injuries, leaving the inmate in a wheelchair during his long recovery.

“Because of the pain and everything he was going through, he spiraled into depression, which led to drinking and then to drug use,” said Richardson. “In order to support his newly formed habit, he started selling drugs, which landed him in the medium security prison.”

Keeping good communication running between the ministries is a vital element in the program’s success.

“Every time I go into a prison where inmates are working on the wheelchairs, I hear how the program is impacting them,” said Mike Gaura, supervisor of Joni and Friends’ domestic operations. “Restoring a wheelchair or a walker for someone else restores something deep in the soul of those putting in the work. They have an opportunity to give back to someone in need.”

Gaura makes sure that after each distribution, a poster with photos and stories about the wheelchair recipients is sent back to those who labored in the effort.

California resident Sue Peppers has been on five Wheels for the World outreaches. The Peppers’ youngest son was born with spina bifida, leaving him wheelchair bound. She and her husband Cliff, also a volunteer, have seen a spectrum of needs. They have seen parents carry their disabled child in their arms to others, bringing a loved one in a makeshift cart to where a partnering ministry can distribute mobility equipment as well as a Bible printed in their own language.

“Sometimes they need a walker, or a chair that fits,” said Cliff Peppers. “Sometimes the need is greater, and a lot needs to happen to create something that will work.”

For Sue, it is an opportunity to pray for the person who donated the chair, the inmate who carefully restored it, and the team as it fits each chair to the specific needs of the recipient.

The Peppers have seen how meeting the physical needs of those often overlooked often leads to sharing the hope of the gospel message.

Despite the volume already distributed, the need is still great. The World Health Organization estimates that 80 million people are in need of a wheelchair, yet only 5-35% have access to one, depending on the country they live in. The most affected are children who without mobility are excluded from school and seen as outcasts. Child-sized wheelchair options are limited, prompting Joni and Friends to look at other options to supplement the need for that demographic.

The rain began to fall just as the volunteers finished loading the truck with over 125 wheelchairs of different shapes and sizes, 135 walkers and several heavy boxes of spare parts, crutches and canes.

Richardson thanked the volunteers for their time and compassion in reaching out to the world, one wheel at a time.

This piece is republished from MinistryWatch.

Marci Seither is a contributor to Ministry Watch.