High school students are learning about more than electronics in Rochester.
Students repair a power wheelchair at Old Colony Regional Vocational Technology School in Rochester.
Last February, REquipment was contacted by Dan Brush, an electronics engineering instructor at the Old Colony Regional Vocational Technical School in Rochester, MA. Dan was reaching out because his students had just repaired a donated scooter. He was looking for help finding it a new home and sharing the cost of repairs. I was excited to learn of high school students eager to fix durable medical equipment. Dan was enthusiastic to continue their service-learning.
The outcome of the phone call? A pilot collaboration for the following school year! REquipment would provide two non-functioning power wheelchairs and new batteries. Dan’s students, with his guidance, would diagnose and repair them. If the wheelchairs passed inspection by our REquipmet technicians, they would be placed in our inventory to find appropriate users.
To follow through, last August we provided two power wheelchairs in anticipation of the new school year. The wheelchairs, Dan informed us, would not only help students learn about electronics, but also the positive impact they have on REquipment program users.
“This is a great experience for them,” Dan wrote us in an email on December 12th. “They all really feel that they are doing something worthwhile (which they are of course!)”
So far, Dan says, one wheelchair is operational and the second will soon receive attention. He says he may enlist the help of another school department to make a bracket for the second chair’s damaged controller.
I’m excited by the possibilities this pilot provides. It’s a win for everyone: for students whose learning has clear value in the real world, for the REquipment Program which receives help to get more powered DME refurbished, and for the individuals who benefit by DME reuse.
How might we build more of these collaborations? I’d love to hear from you.
REquipment is delighted to announce the release of our latest promotional video: REquipment Changes Lives. The video was shot and produced by high school film student Atticus Phinney-Anderson to help get out the word about the importance of durable medical equipment reuse. Thank you, Atticus for a wonderful job!
Many thanks as well to JoJo who generously shares his story as a REquipment power wheelchair recipient and also to Joe Tringali, Stavros CIL Program Director, and reuse partner. Stavros hosted Atticus and JoJo for filming last winter and Joe additionally provided an interview. Also, a big thank you to Amy Corrigan, PT, who is a program user and who came to the Worcester AT Center to be interviewed for this project. Amy does a wonderful job explaining the positive impact REquipment has had for her clients. Several more people at both Stavros and the Worcester AT Center contributed to our film maker’s understanding of the role REquipment plays within the community and the work it takes to refurbish durable medical equipment. Thank you to all who were interviewed by and spent time with Atticus.
Readers! Thank you for sharing with us how REquipment improves your quality of life and health. Recently we received a letter from Paul Provencher that taught us something new.
“I am at the hospital sometimes 5 days a week for dialysis and doctors appointments,” Paul writes. “Before receiving the wheelchair, my wife would have to park, get out and hopefully find a wheelchair, nevermind one that works. Not to mention when was the last time it was disinfected? […] Now I arrive for dialysis on time [….] and the threat of cross-contamination from a hospital wheelchair has been eliminated.”
And here we thought we knew everything there is to know about uses for wheelchairs. But we’d never considered the risk of cross-contamination from DME serving hospital lobbies and parking lots.
People who rely on dialysis think about the risk of infection all the time, of course. Obtaining a wheelchair from insurance for this transport purpose is not easy. Our program makes a difference, can extend lives, and your letters help with that project.
Do you have a story to share with us? Help us make the case for supporting our DME reuse program. Soon we will be fundraising with your testimonials and while not everyone in our community can make a financial contribution, many can and do send us words of thanks and wisdom on how REquipment DME improves their wellbeing.
Thank you. We love hearing from you. We learn from you. Keep it coming.
Our reuse partner, UCP of Western Massachusetts, using their delivery truck for storage in Pittsfield.
We are busting at the seams and it’s a wonderful dilemma to have.
Thank you!
Because, clearly, the word is out. REquipment is a great place to bring your gently-used but no-longer-needed DME. We help families find appropriate homes for equipment that once made a big difference (or was rarely used) in their households. Sometimes this is an emotional decision. Sometimes it’s just a relief to know what to do with these devices. Regardless, everyone is glad to see valuable medical equipment get back to work in the hands of people who need it. Keep it up!
Now here’s another way you may be able to help…
REquipment needs free accessible storage space in Massachusetts. Know of an empty warehouse looking to benefit with a tax donation letter? Or another available space (at minimum 10 x 20 ft) that is easy to access from our van? Our reuse locations are filled to capacity and our overflow strategy is not a great solution.
Parts storage at the Worcester Reuse Center
Currently, we rent a 40-foot container and 3 storage units that receive donations faster than we can empty them. These units are expensive and on their own inadequate. Yet our capacity to store donations is what keeps our online inventory robust and our program a tremendous developing resource (indeed, we’d like to provide more categories of equipment in the future!)
If you know of a space that REquipment could access during regular business hours, please contact me at klangley@dmereuse.org to set up a time to discuss.
If you’d like to contribute to the cost of storage, please visit our website at diligent-gray-hare.162-244-253-142.cpanel.site/ and use our secure PayPal link. Don’t like to pay online? Send a check of any amount to REquipment, Inc., PO Box 311, Methuen, MA 01844.
REquipment’s capacity to move large volumes of donations means more adults and children with disabilities, including veterans and seniors, can stay active outside and confident inside their homes. Thank you for supporting our REquipment mission and helping us brainstorm storage solutions! (Another way to help? Share this blog post!)
Regular users of the REquipment reuse program were acutely aware that our inventory of refurbished durable medical equipment (DME) was offline from December 1, 2018, to April 1, 2019. Why were we down for so long? Hosting of our inventory’s database was required to be transferred to a HIPAA-compliant hosting agency to protect the personal information of people requesting devices. The process to find a host agency and to transfer the data (and all the “fixin’s”) took much longer than anticipated. One caller said it took less time to get an astronaut to the moon than to get our inventory back up!
This 4-month hiatus taught us something important about ourselves, however. Our staff is awesome!
A huge thank you to Jennifer Baker, REquipment Program Director. Jen designed and implemented Plan B for running our services. REquipment Coordinators Dan Perkins and Tiffany Falco and the reuse staff in Canton, Worcester, Amherst, and Pittsfield also went the extra mile for four long months. We took requests over the phone and off Facebook. We entered everything into spreadsheets. We reviewed available equipment with each person who connected with us. And in the end–drum roll please–we blew our numbers out of the water with old school ingenuity. Yes, during the same period last year REquipment delivered 899 DME devices; this year we delivered 968!
Paul Gay and Chuck Smith refurbishing DME in Worcester
We’re bursting with pride that we managed to pull this off and if you love it too, here’s how you can help.
Right now call your state legislators and tell them how important our program is to you and your community. It’s budget-making season and we want to be sure to maintain the Commonwealth’s commitment to our statewide expansion. Ask your representative to co-sponsor Amendment #93 to H3800 Assistive Technology in the House Budget (which earmarks assistive technology). Calls are needed through April 19th.
Now that our inventory is back online, and with your continued support, we expect many more individuals with disabilities, families, seniors, and veterans will get the rollators, scooters, power chairs and shower chairs they need quickly, without hassle, to maintain their independence.
Our mission is a win-win-win for everyone. DME donors pay it forward (and may receive a tax donation letter). DME users obtain what insurance denies or drags its feet to provide. And everyone benefits when valuable devices are diverted from the local solid waste station.
Happy Earth Day!
As always, thank you for your letters of support, cards of thanks, financial donations, posts on Facebook and general enthusiasm for growing our DME reuse movement.
Pressure injuries are common and too often life-threatening for users of wheelchairs. We are thrilled our program played a critical healing role for the Barnards.
We always say REquipment helps people stay safe and independent at home and in their communities. This story goes so much further.
Tom Barnard Sr. received a sit-to-stand manual wheelchair from REquipment last year. His son, Tommy Jr., recently emailed to let us know the extraordinary impact the device has had on his father’s health, quality of life, and overall happiness.
“This video was presented in front of an audience of over 200 doctors and medical professionals from all over the country last weekend down in Atlanta Georgia at the National Wound Convention by my dad’s doctor. [.…] I have gotten so many people asking me about your program.[….] Thank you for your wonderful program.”
The video was made as a promotion for the South Shore Wound Center, which clearly did a terrific job for Tom Barnard Sr. Lisa Gould, MD, however, also credits Tommy Jr. with making a powerful difference. He cared for his father through his multiple pressure injury surgeries, recoveries, and finally, with finding him a free gently-used standing wheelchair from–you guessed it–REquipment!
In email and on the phone, the Barnards have let us know what that sit-to-stand wheelchair has meant for Tom Sr. First, there was the psychological effect of getting upright for the first time in 10 years. Second, was the profound benefit to his tissue. Tom Sr. had devastating pressure wounds (which are graphically shared in the video). He underwent a total of seven surgeries, including four for his primary wound and two for a second wound he developed, as Dr. Gould explains, while working to stay off the first injury. What he needed was to get upright altogether and restore circulation to this area of his body for periods of time each day.
We won’t pause to bemoan the state of our medical system that does not logically prescribe a standing device for persons experiencing life-threatening pressure injuries of this kind and causation. But we will celebrate that REquipment had equipment appropriate for Tom Sr. in our browseable inventory and that Tommy Jr. spied it and requested what his father so urgently needed. [NOTE: our website should be restored soon. We are enduring an upgrade.]
Our sit-to-stand wheelchair is not the only reason for Tom Sr.’s healing, but it was a dramatic turning point as the video makes clear. Tom Sr. used the REquipment device for six months and experienced such a dramatic improvement, healing his second wound and avoiding an eighth surgery (and more time lost in bed), that a case was made for insurance to cover a new powered device that has him cruising his neighborhood upright (see the end of that video!)
Tommy Jr. writes us: “I will be getting in touch with you all soon to get that original standing wheelchair back to you…so somebody else can benefit from it. That original chair helped my dad tremendously.”
Of course, I told Tom Sr. about another program we have here in Massachusetts, the Weight and Seating Independence Project which, like REquipment, is also a MassMATCH initiative. This project loans pressure mapping systems to wheelchair users statewide. I let Tom Sr. know these systems are available and can help him learn his best positioning for sitting and sleeping in order to avoid further injury.
Interested in learning more about pressure mapping for yourself or someone you know? MassMATCH is offering a free live webinar on March 20th at 2 p.m., “Getting Started with Pressure Mapping.” Read about it and how to register at this MassMATCH webpage.
And if you’re looking for gently-used durable medical equipment (or have something to donate), please call us at 1-800-261-9841 to learn about our inventory while our website is undergoing reconstruction. We will be back up soon!
Tom Barnard Sr. in his REquipment standing wheelchair
It’s awful to be 12 years old with suddenly no way to get around. Nearly as awful as being that 12-year-old’s parents!
Lilli went to the mountain February 2nd and broke both her legs snowboarding. Yes, both. Her legs were cast above the knee, and she was summarily discharged home… with no medical equipment!
No wheelchair.
No way to shower (or access the bathroom).
No way to attend school.
No way for both parents to go to work!
Luckily Lilli’s mom, Leigh, knew to reach out to our durable medical reuse program. Program Director Jen Baker soon contacted all of our REquipment reuse sites and located…
A tub transfer seat for bathing.
An elevated toilet seat.
And a wheelchair sized for Lilli!
We delivered the equipment last Wednesday. Lilli is expected back at school, fully mobile, today. Needless to say, everyone is relieved.
Especially Lilli!
Do you need refurbished durable medical equipment? Email us at info@dmereuse.org or call 1 800 261 9841.
If you have durable medical equipment or funds you’d like to donate to REquipment, learn how at our home page.
Throughout the month of January, REquipment went head-to-head with Catie’s Closet for a $1,000 prize sponsored by MillTown Plumbing, a local business that routinely nominates do-gooder organizations like ours to compete via votes cast at their website. Success hinges on the passion of each nonprofit’s community and social media prowess. We are so proud of all of you for engaging in this fun this month, and propelling us to an exciting nail-biting finish! A sample of the messages we received on our Facebook page:
Erin Mosca: I’ve been voting every day. Thank you for all you do!
Nicole Thebeau: REquipment, I shared and let everyone know why. Thanks for your help when I needed it most.
Bebe Heasley Packard: Just voted! What you do is awesome. Sure wish we had this program where I live!
Joyce Hayman-Devolve: Done… looking good for REquipment. Fingers and toes crossed. Shared
Dianne Young: Did you win?
Dianne and all who asked: YES!
The final tally was:
6,926 REquipment
5,579 Catie’s Closet
If you’re reading this, likely you were nudged daily to vote by me or another of our dedicated staff or by a friend posting online because we were, well, a tad relentless (don’t worry, it’s over now). Every call I made I asked, “Did you vote today?” Even my mother, who is 94, voted every day on her iPad and cell phone. The first couple of days she called to say she lost the link but then she got the hang of it and “I voted today!” became one of the first things she’d report when I’d call.
We want to extend a big warm-hearted thank you to Catie’s Closet for being such a worthy opponent. Catie’s Closet supports disadvantaged school children and clearly has a loyal passionate following. In the first week, REquipment was way out in front with 80% of votes cast. But then Catie’s Closet came roaring from behind and every day to the end was a frantic dash with each of us repeatedly nosing ahead or dropping behind (we did finally pull way ahead, however!) We would also like to thank MillTown Plumbing for supporting local non-profits through this and future competitions.
How will REquipment use this $1,000, you ask? Why, for new batteries to refurbish power wheelchairs, of course! (Our biggest funding nemesis.) 3 to 4 power chairs will become road ready for community members who need wheels!
Ordinarily, REquipment serves Massachusetts. We provide donated, refurbished durable medical equipment to individuals with disabilities statewide at no charge. When requests come from beyond Massachusetts, our policy is to make equipment available that has remained listed in our inventory for 90 days (occasionally we provide DME for national disaster relief efforts, too). This year we were delighted to see three of our wheelchairs take a very special trip: to clinics for children in Port Au Prince, Haiti.
The partnership began in 2017 when we were contacted by Mary Jo Wagner, an OT who has worked for decades in Massachusetts helping to fit individuals with appropriate durable medical equipment. Mary Jo was familiar with our REquipment program and called to ask if she could request devices from our inventory on behalf of specific children in Haiti who needed it. She explained that twice a year, she and three colleagues visit two residential programs, one having a school, for children with disabilities. Their volunteer effort–Wheelchair Works for Haiti–provides donated wheelchairs, specialized seating, and their considerable expertise with fitting and positioning. Haiti has never fully recovered from an earthquake eight years ago and has been hit hard by tropical storms since. Many of the students attending these programs have lost their parents.
Children living in these residences often lack basic or properly fitting wheelchairs and other durable medical equipment. In 2017 we were able to provide two wheelchairs. This year REquipment helped three children with wheelchairs appropriate in size and features for their unique needs. We also contributed to shipping expenses using funds from our Christopher and Dana Reeve Quality of Life grant.
Below is the letter of thanks we received from Mary Jo Wagner and her colleague Merry Kaulbach. As you can see from the children’s smiles, these chairs are greatly appreciated. Thank you, Mary Jo and Merry, for this opportunity to make a difference in the lives of these Haitian children. And thank you to our donors for helping us develop an inventory that can reach beyond our state’s borders!
Dear REquipment Program,
We would like to thank you for your support of our Haiti wheelchair clinics with the donation of wheelchairs.
Your donated equipment was packed and shipped to Haiti in time for our arrival November 12, 2018. The wheelchair clinics took place in two locations in Port Au Prince: Zanmi Beni and St Vincent’s Center. Luckily for us, they are less than a ½ mile apart. We serviced over 25 people this trip.
All but one child already had a wheelchair. However, none fit properly because their wheelchairs were not designed for children with cerebral palsy. With the appropriate donated wheelchairs, we customized the seating systems to accommodate their dimensions, body shape, and motor skills. Now Tommy has a wheelchair that fits his body.
Tommy
Naphtalie will be receiving art lessons on Zanmi Beni campus with better body support to use her hands.
Naphtalie
Doreston’s wheelchair tilts back with a headrest and has a custom back to hold his trunk in alignment. He now sits up straight! He was able to attend the International Disability Day Celebration on St. Vincent’s Campus.
Doreston before (left) and after (right) our wheelchair clinic.
Please feel free to contact us to offer support, answer questions, make connections, etc.
We also accept fabric donations for a dressmaker in Haiti as well as summer clothes for children and adults. These are used as packaging!!!
My name is JoJo and I acquired a traumatic brain injury (TBI) in April of 2017. I was in a nursing home until my doctors could get me a wheelchair to use to get home. Shortly after returning home, my family and I realized that due to the impact the TBI has had on my ability to move my arms, the manual wheelchair was not going to work for me.
My family and I searched everywhere to find a program that would loan us a power chair because the insurance company told me it was too soon to apply for a new wheelchair (since I had just received my manual chair). We couldn’t find anywhere that would help and after numerous calls and emails, we were just about ready to give up.
Finally, we stumbled across a site called diligent-gray-hare.162-244-253-142.cpanel.site/, home to REquipment. On this website, we found tons of durable medical equipment that is free of charge to people in need who are in situations just like mine. The website is screenreader compatible which is amazing as I am legally blind. Also, I found I could communicate with REquipment through email which was a wonderful surprise; due to my struggles with using the phone after hearing loss caused by my TBI, I was so grateful for the option to work through email.
My family and I browsed the site and picked out the exact power chair that was my size but also suited my specific needs due to my disabilities, and applied for the power chair through the website. My power chair from REequipment was approved and delivered to me shortly after.
The power chair I received has truly changed my life. Now I have the ability to leave my house without needing someone to push me. I can not only go to doctors appointments on my own, but also grocery shopping, to the bank, and even to fun activities put on by my local community center for people with disabilities.
I am more independent and able to do things that I was not sure I’d ever be able to do on my own again after my TBI changed my life forever in April of 2017. I no longer see myself as being trapped in a wheelchair that doesn’t work for me but rather I see the limitless potential and freedom my future could hold now that I have a wheelchair that works for my needs.
I am so grateful that I found this program and it has truly changed my life. Since acquiring the power chair, REquipment has also provided me with a stander so I can improve my circulation and get upright once again. Thanks to REquipment, I am back to doing the things I love (even if it is in a different way) which is something I couldn’t even imagine happening after my TBI. Living life in a wheelchair is hard, but it has gotten so much easier now that I have what I need.
