TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 A Polk County man has helped to collect hundreds of used wheelchairs to help people in need in developing countries. Joe Whitehurst has a personal reason for what he does.<\/p>\n
On a recent morning, Whitehurst and Christ Community Presbyterian Church youth pastor Jonathan Spencer were moving some of the latest donated wheelchairs from the church building into trailer so they could take them to a storage unit. \u201cOur church rents a ten by 20 storage facility,\u201d said Whitehurst. \u201cWe collect them for several weeks or months before we do a big load.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whitehurst says he has a number of sources for getting donated used wheelchairs from a number of local counties. \u201cFrom individuals, and we get them from assisted living facilities. From hospitals. From adult congregate living facilities. Anywhere we can get them he said.\u201d<\/p>\n
Once the church collects many wheelchairs, a Walmart truck takes them to an out of state correctional facility where inmates rehabilitate them. \u201cIt gives an opportunity for the prisoners to learn things about repairing different devices and to feel good about themselves,\u201d said Whitehurst. \u201cBecause they are doing something that will benefit someone else.\u201d<\/p>\n
Once the wheelchairs are fixed, the Joni and Friends organization gets them to people in need in developing counties. Whitehurst says the wheelchairs are part of a legacy. \u201cBecause it belonged to someone. Son, daughter, mother, dad, husband, wife. And they depended on it for mobility.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whitehurst has a personal reason for being involved with Joni and Friends. At about the same time he graduated with a degree in physical therapy, his son Andy, was born. Andy has cerebral palsy, Asbergers and learning delays. He often uses a wheelchair. \u201cWell, I figured God has given him us because there is an assumption I know what to do with him.\u201d Whitehurst said his wife is Andy\u2019s primary caregiver.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been so much fun to get somebody like Joe to really be the champion behind all this,\u201d said Spencer. \u201cBecause without him we would be nowhere near the amount of wheelchairs we are collecting by far.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whitehurst said being part of the wheelchair program has been great for him. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s amazing,” he said. “You are giving a person a higher level of mobility and safety, and it\u2019s a warm feeling inside.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 A Polk County man has helped to collect hundreds of used wheelchairs to help people…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":353596,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[767,2297,770,2296,28,115,2298,135,137,136,278,835],"class_list":["post-353595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-app-community","tag-app-everyday-heroes","tag-community-news","tag-everyday-hero","tag-florida","tag-news","tag-rick-elmhorst","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-top-stories","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/353596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}