Wheelchair Project Saves Lives, Allows Children to See Sunshine

Angela Adkins doesn’t live in the past. As the Executive Director of NAMI-DuPage (National Alliance for Mental Illness) and of the Wheaton Rotary Club, she has quite a bit to do in the present.
 
However, Adkins collects wheelchairs. And that requires a bit of explanation.
 
“I went to live with my parents when I was three. I was adopted when I was five.”
 
She is careful with her language. It’s a story she’s told many times.
 
“My adoptive parents fostered hundreds of children. I was one of three girls they adopted. I learned very early to share. Nothing was mine alone. But I always felt incredibly blessed.”
 
Adkins’ hair falls in a smooth, silver bob. She has a French tip manicure, bright blue eyes and wears frosted pink lipstick. There is a faint trace of British accent in her voice. Somehow, it makes her seem both posh and friendly.

With her history, wheelchairs stood for confinement and tragedy
 
“One of my sister’s had Huntington’s,” Adkins explained, a fatal degenerative disease. “She began showing signs of the disease as a teen. By the age of 23, she’d deteriorated to the point where she needed a wheelchair. I remember being devastated for her. It was a very tough, to watch this vital young woman confined to a chair. She died when she was only 32.”

Many years later, Adkins attended a presentation by a man looking for donations for a Wheelchair Foundation. With her history, wheelchairs stood for confinement and tragedy. Not a favorite memory, but she listened to the story with increasing interest.
 
Ken Behring, a wealthy business man from Freeport, regularly traveled the world in a private jet. Flying into Africa, he often carried donations of medical supplies. On one trip, he delivered wheelchairs to a hospital.
 
With poignant gratitude, an elderly man remarked, “Now, I can go outside in my yard and be with my neighbors.”
 
Within a year, Behring had established the Wheelchair Foundation. In six months, twenty thousand chairs had been delivered to sixty-five countries.

Light-bulb moment: Six months, 25,000 chairs, 65 countries
 
The story resonated with Adkins.
 
“It was a light bulb moment. All my life, the memory of my sister’s transition to the wheelchair had been painful. Hearing how the chair improved these people’s lives, gave me a whole new perspective. All I could think was, I had to help other people receive that gift of mobility.”
 
Since then, Adkins has helped with eight deliveries totaling over three thousand chairs to countries all over the world including Chile, Mexico and Nicaragua.
 
“It’s very humbling experience. You get on the road about six in the morning. The whole town comes out to greet you. Often they make food, sharing the little they have. They make you feel like royalty. People will be sitting, waiting for hours, even days for the chairs to arrive, having traveled hundreds of miles.”
 
Over the years, the chairs have been redesigned and restructured for the hard wearing conditions under which they will be used. They are lighter than other wheelchairs, with bigger, sturdier wheels that are harder to puncture.

“When people get into these chairs for the first time, they have huge smiles on their faces. It means the difference between a life spent indoors and sunshine, a chance to earn money to help their families," Adkins said. "It transforms a life in an instant.”

Transform a life: How to help

Each chair costs $150 to sponsor. Each container, filled with close to 300 chairs, costs $44,000 to fill and ship. More than 150 countries all over the world have already received shipments. The next destination is Suriname in South America.
 
Rotary Clubs worldwide have been very involved in the program, often partnering with a club in the host country to help coordinate deliveries. Wheaton’s Rotary Club has accepted the challenge of sponsoring a container.
 
“Our goal is to raise the money by the fall of this year and deliver the chairs in the spring of 2013. We have a good start. But we need help. Individuals can sponsor a chair or groups, high school key clubs, book clubs, local businesses,  anyone. This creates an instantaneous, life changing effect on someone.”

At the Rotary Club Installation dinner last month, Adkins said the club could raise enough money for , totaling around $44,000, to deliver to children in South America.
 
“I was raised to give back,” Adkins admits easily. Her hundred watt smile is worthy of a cover model. “But you know, I get a lot of pleasure out of helping. I feel incredibly lucky to do what I do.”

By Julie Eakins

To learn more about how you can help with the Wheelchair Project, contact Angela Adkins at ang.nami@gmail.com or 630.390.4586. Or visit the Wheaton Rotary website: www.wheatonrotary.org.