It started in Guatemala —
The concept of Wheels of Hope began in 1988 when Christian
missionaries, Mark and Sandy Richard, saw a Mayan woman crawling across
the Pan
American Highway in the pouring rain. Mark and Sandy promised they
would get her a wheelchair during their next trip to the United States.
Two
years
later,
Mark and Sandy returned with over fifteen wheelchairs and
wheelchair parts for Macaria and others with disabilities in Guatemala.
Over the course of the next five years, Mark established
a wheelchair refurbishing center near Alliance, Ohio, and continued
distributing wheelchairs in Guatemala and Mexico. In 1993, Mark joined
with Joni
and Friends to direct the newly formed program, Wheels
for the World. Joni and Friends quickly expanded the scope
of distribution from Mark's base in Latin America to Ghana, Africa
and Eastern Europe. In
1994, Mark moved
the facility to its present location, 20,000 s.f. of warehouse
space in Canton, Ohio. Then Mark left Ohio to establish a second Wheels
for the World refurbishing center in Iowa, in conjunction with
Hope Haven International Ministries (HHIM).
In January 1995, Joni and Friends hired a new Ohio
supervisor for the Canton refurbishing center, Patrick Rimke. Patrick
had volunteered for Mark since 1989. Growth in Ohio slowly continued
until January of 1997, when Joni and Friends began a program to refurbish
wheelchairs
in U.S. prisons, and ended its financial commitment to the Ohio
facility.
However, due to the overwhelming support of its volunteers and donors,
the facility was reopened in July 1997
as an independent organization under a new name: Wheels of Hope.
Wheels of Hope was incorporated as a tax-exempt non-profit in November 1997.