On November 2, 2018, I chaired a Rotary District 5170 Rotary Foundation event to celebrate Past Rotary International President Richard (“Rick”) D. King’s 50^th anniversary in Rotary. The event was attended by more than five hundred Rotarians from all over the world, including six other Past Rotary International Presidents, and raised $365,000 for The Rotary Foundation. As part of the anniversary celebration, Kenneth E. Behring, the Founder of The Wheelchair Foundation, gifted one hundred wheelchairs to Richard King and asked that we deliver and distribute to people who require a wheelchair in the capital city of Mexico, Mexico City. He also asked Past Rotary International President Frank J. Devlyn to arrange for and help with the distribution in Mexico City.

 

The following summer in 2019, I accompanied Past President Rick King to Mexico City for the distribution of the one hundred wheelchairs. We led a group of about 15 Rotarians and spouses from Rotary District 5170. We were greeted at the airport by Past President Frank Devlyn and many Rotarians from his District 4170. The next day, they led us to a YMCA gym in Mexico City, where we were greeted by Rotarians but more importantly by about one hundred people who require a wheelchair, many of them were elderly and children. The experience of speaking to people with a physical disability and hearing their stories as to how long they had been waiting for a wheelchair and how far they came to get a wheelchair touched my heart as well as many others who came from the United States to the wheelchair distribution. Each one of us came home with his or her own Rotary Story.

 

About six months before I took office as Rotary District 5170 Governor, I met with our District 61 Club Presidents and suggested that we collect wheelchairs as our class’s District Project for the year 2021-2022. There are 7.8 billion people in the world and about 131 million of them require a wheelchair. I also suggested that our clubs should raise a total of one container, which has 280 wheelchairs and should deliver and distribute them to the country of Mexico, which is not too far from where we live, and many Rotarians, their spouses, and children could come to the wheelchair delivery and receive an experience of helping those who need help. In a developing county such as Mexico, less than 10% of people who require a wheelchair have access to one. Each wheelchair costs $150 to manufacture and ship to one of the developing countries. The Club Presidents overwhelmingly support the proposed wheelchair project.