Last Saturday I was surrounded by the happiest people in the world. Five-year-old polio patients, legless landmine victims, amputees, and those with other infirmities shuffled on crutches or were carried by family members into the courtyard. Although most were from the poorest of backgrounds, on this day they all wore their best clothes and held their heads high.
This was the day that their life would be changed.
They were about to receive their first wheelchair.
The line outside the art museum in San Salvador stretched around the block – the queue lengthening after each diesel-belching bus unloaded. Inside the museum’s courtyard, more than 280 gleaming red wheelchairs were unpacked, awaiting new owners. A local Rotarian called each name from a clipboard into the megaphone causing a chain reaction among fellow workers to assist the recipient up a steep ramp to the official wheelchair distribution area.
After brief introductions in fragmented Spanglish, NuView IRA volunteers, together with other Rotary Club members, gently lowered our new friends into their gift of mobility. The emotions in that moment seemed to erase the challenge of language as tears of gladness and appreciation led to smiles and hugs.
Five-year-old Maria said she heard that you can dance once finally in a wheelchair, which she then proceeded to happily try. Edwin, an eight-year-old with legs that will never be able to carry him, exclaimed he want to be a soldier now that he has his chair. Antonio, a man at the young age of 101, received his first chair alongside his wife, Maria, a feisty 79-year-old, and he plans to live a much more active life back in his village. Hundreds of other stories have been stitched together in the fabric of our minds after participating in this distribution last week in El Salvador.
Thanks to many of our friends, colleagues and clients, and to all of those that participated in the 2013 Hero Games to raise money for the Wheelchair Foundation, hundreds of lives have been changed forever. It is said it is far more blessed to give than to receive, and this past week was an awesome reminder of the power of sharing just a small portion that which we so frequently take for granted.
Stay tuned for our second annual Hero Games event coming next spring so that you may be part of the next chapter in this wonderful adventure.
God Bless,
Glen
