Transforming lives through the gift of mobility.

An Update From Our CEO

In August, we first brought you news about the challenges we face with the shipping industry.

This topic has increasingly made its way into mainstream news as scores of ships idle off the coast of Long Beach, California and other congested ports, waiting for a chance to unload containers of goods. As you might have noticed, this worldwide disruption in the supply chain has resulted in a shortage of many items at your local stores.

And now, not only has the logistics and inventory side of our work been challenged, but so has the production and manufacturing side.

Power blackouts caused by energy shortages overseas have hindered many factories from operating at full capacity, further disrupting the supply chain. Thankfully, our wheelchair factory continues to operate, and we are making conscientious decisions to buy inventory in advance and doing our best to get early bookings with our freight forwarder.

We are closely monitoring the impact of this situation on our raw material suppliers and overall inventory. Our programs and manufacturing teams have been hard at work, remaining in close communication with our factory as we strive to find solutions and achieve our wheelchair distribution goals for the year.

Yet, despite these many challenges, we have still been able to successfully ship 28 containers of wheelchairs so far this fiscal year, including two containers that are en route to Haiti, where three additional containers will be shipped in the weeks and months to come.

Thankfully, our partners in Haiti had existing inventory that enabled them to distribute wheelchairs to those in need, in the days immediately following the devastating earthquake that struck on August 14.

All of this has been possible thanks to your sustained partnership with us.

Would you keep this situation in your prayers so that we can continue to send wheelchairs to those in need of them in developing countries? Also pray for our distribution partners, who are greatly affected by these issues as they rely on aid from overseas.

And would you consider giving during October’s x2 Gift Challenge? Your gifts will be doubled by a group of generous donors and will help us order more inventory and book shipping in advance. Our goal this month is 18,500 wheelchairs, and we are still 4,503 wheelchairs away from this goal as of this writing.

Thank you for your continued prayers and support.

With gratitude,
Nuka Solomon
Chief Executive Officer
Free Wheelchair Mission