VOLGA – Gary Dusharm, left, removes a wheel from a wheelchair while John MaComb catalogues parts and assesses what condition they’re in. The Brookings men volunteer for Iowa-based Hope Haven International, disassembling wheelchairs, fixing what’s wrong and putting them back together again. The local Hope Haven volunteers have been doing that since 2003, and the handymen have tallied their 5,000th wheelchair that they’ve refurbished, marking the occasion with a cake Tuesday.
They gather in the back of a shop on the north edge of Volga from 9 a.m. to noon every Tuesday and Thursday to work on the donated wheelchairs. When the chairs are fixed up again, they are shipped to 108 countries, said Chester VanderZee of Volga, who organizes the local Hope Haven efforts. Keith Van Duyn of Volga followed one of his wheelchairs to Romania and talked to the person who received it.
The men come from all walks of life but enjoy the manual labor and mental stimulation of trying to figure out the puzzles that the wheelchairs are. Floyd Wiesner of Brookings said he’s only been working at it for a few months, but it’s “always nice to learn something new.”
