A helping hand for those in need

Dozens of people in the Charleston area need wheelchairs and can't afford them.

At the same time, probably dozens of electric wheelchairs are sitting around on porches and in garages, after people die and relatives don't know what to do with the chairs.

It seems pretty wasteful to Gwen Gillenwater, executive director of the Disability Resource Center in North Charleston. The center works to match wheelchairs and other medical equipment with needs.

Medicare pays for electric wheelchairs for those the system considers disabled, but Medicare doesn't have a program for recycling them.

"We're filling a need nobody else is doing," Gillenwater said.

But the center is run by volunteers who are themselves disabled, and they could use some help as well as donations, she said.

For the last year, John Boineau of Adams Run has had an electric wheelchair sitting on his front porch.

His wife left it behind when she died about a year ago. It works well, and Boineau has been wondering what to do with it.

"I know some people try to sell them," Boineau said. "But mine didn't cost me, so I don't see why I should try to make money off somebody else's hardship."

There are dozens of people like Boineau wondering what to do with used medical equipment, operations director Gloria Maurer said. A woman called her a few days ago saying she had a wheelchair and a hospital bed she was going to put out by the side of the road.

An electric wheelchair can cost $10,000. Medicare pays for one only when someone is totally unable to get around their house without it, according to an agency spokeswoman who could only give unattributed background information. Medicare does not pay for a power chair if a person can move around the house without it but needs it to do a job, she said.

That's just one of the many twists of federal law that irritate Gillenwater. She's spent her life trying to make it easier for the disabled to work.

"That's all most disabled people want," she said. "What you do is your identity."

She's disabled herself from a brain injury. All the volunteers at the center are disabled to some degree.

That includes Gene Reese of Goose Creek, the man who gets the wheelchairs working for people who need them.

Reese, 52, lost the use of his legs 16 years ago when he was hit by a drunk driver on his way home from work at Coburg Dairy, where he ran a machine that made plastic milk bottles. He has five children.

"It's been a hard struggle," Reese said. "Life changed from that point on. But I had to learn to live, to keep moving."

He rolls around in a manual wheelchair, disassembling and reassembling machines, recharging batteries, swapping wheels and parts.

"God has been good to me, and I'm trying to give back to the community," he said. "While I'm here (on earth), I'm going to help somebody."

Reese could use some help sometimes, Gillenwater said. The center could also use some volunteers to move donated equipment.

The center has a movable ramp for loading things onto a truck or van but lacks people to use it.

Reach Dave Munday at 937-5553 or dmunday@postandcourier.com.