Restored wheelchairs, restored lives
Agoura Hills, CA, Sept. 27, 2024 – Over the past seventeen years, inmates at the South Central Correctional Facility (SCCF) in Clifton, Tennessee, have restored over 25,000 donated wheelchairs through a prison work program. The used wheelchairs they fix are sent to high-need areas around the world through the Joni and Friends Wheels for the World™ program, which distributes mobility devices and Bibles to the world’s most vulnerable citizens.
Last month, inmates learned the impact of their efforts. At a ceremony celebrating 55,000 wheelchairs restored through CoreCivic, the umbrella company that operates SCCF, Joni and Friends staff told the story of Nicole, a young woman living with cerebral palsy in the Philippines who received her first wheelchair at the age of twenty-five during a Joni and Friends outreach.
Incarcerated workers in the Wheels for the World restoration program report that the meaningful act of wheelchair restoration, underpinned by the Gospel message, makes them feel “human again” and “not like a stereotypical inmate.”
To celebrate the restoration of 55,000 wheelchairs for disabled individuals in low-resource countries through its prison work programs, Joni and Friends recognized CoreCivic with two award presentations for achieving this major milestone.
Joni and Friends honored CoreCivic program participants with a special lunch celebration at South Central Correctional Facility last month. The ministry also thanked CoreCivic executives with a plaque presentation at the American Correctional Association’s 154th Congress of Correction in Nashville.
Since 1998, Joni and Friends has partnered with CoreCivic to operate occupational programs in their correctional facilities where donated wheelchairs are restored to like-new condition before being sent to countries around the world through the Joni and Friends Wheels for the World™ program. Six CoreCivic prisons have been home to wheelchair restoration programs over the past two-and-a-half decades, and two are currently in operation, including South Central Correctional Facility in Clifton, Tennessee and Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility in Tutwiler, Mississippi.
As the largest Wheels for the World restoration program, workers at South Central Correctional Facility have processed nearly 27,000 wheelchairs to date since 2008. Chairs from South Central have been shipped to 34 countries around the world including Honduras, Uganda, and Ukraine.
“Partnering with Joni and Friends over the past twenty-five years and reaching the milestone of more than 55,000 restored wheelchairs has truly been a blessing,” said Damon T. Hininger, President and CEO of CoreCivic. “The impact of Wheels for the World has been monumental not only for those who desperately need these wheelchairs, but also because of the life-changing impact this effort has had among those in our care who have participated in the restoration program.”
Paul Dorthalina, Director of Wheels for the World, said that it is inspiring to watch men choose to do good for others while serving a criminal sentence.
“We can see the life-changing difference their participation in the Wheels for the World wheelchair restoration program is having in their lives,” Paul said. “The Gospel is about redemption, and we see people experiencing new life in Christ every day because they were given the dignity of work or the dignity of mobility.”
Joni and Friends started Wheels for the World thirty years ago to meet a pressing need. Eighty million people around the globe are in need of a wheelchair, according to the World Health Organization, but in some countries less than 5% have access to one.
Since launching Wheels for the World, Joni and Friends has distributed over 233,000 wheelchairs. The global need for a wheelchair is growing every year as demand outpaces donations.
Joni and Friends partners with multiple correctional agencies and institutions to bless the world’s disabled and give the dignity of meaningful work to incarcerated individuals. Joni and Friends is grateful for every partner that makes this important work possible.
Wheels for the World also relies on donations and wheelchair collection volunteers in the community. To learn how you can help, visit https://joniandfriends.org/wheels-for-the-world/.
