An entrepreneur gives hundreds of electric wheelchairs to the disabled and the elderly! Some had not left their house in years ...
There are things that many of us take for granted until we find ourselves involved in the first person and then we realize that none of these things are guaranteed.
Now, Philip Pavone, a Connecticut entrepreneur who has had close contact with the reality of those who experience a severe disability, knows this very well.
It all started when, in the pawnshop he owns, he realized that he had accumulated several motorized wheelchairs that he wanted to get rid of.
Wanting to speed up their removal, he decided to put an advertisement in the newspaper in which they were offered for free, as a gift.
That was in 2009, and his announcement in a couple of weeks had received 60 replies. Only then did Philip realize how tragic the condition of many people around him was.
via AZ Pawn’s Gift of Mobility
Many of the people who had responded to the announcement had confessed that their insurance did not cover the cost of a motorized wheelchair (from $4,000 to $40,000 USD) and that by themselves they could not afford to buy one.
As a result of this, and having no relatives to help them, some of them were unable to leave their house, and in fact, they had not done so for months and sometimes even for years.
Philip decided he could and should do something for those people left to themselves. First, he tried buying, repairing, and giving away some used motorized wheelchairs.
The experiment went very well and Philip realized that a lot of these motorized wheelchairs were probably just lying around in many people's basements or garages.
Therefore, the next move was to raise public awareness! So, he announced that anyone who had an unused or broken motorized wheelchair could hand it over to him. He promised to repair these motorized wheelchairs and give them to those who needed them. Thus was born AZ Pawn's Gift of Mobility.
The association is now well known in the field of charity, and every year the collection of equipment culminates with a Christmas event, in which in a single day one hundred motorized wheelchairs and electric mobility scooters are donated to the needy.
Among them, there was, for example, a Holocaust survivor, some local nursing home patients, and a 20-year-old woman with a rare degenerative disease.
Thanks to Phillip and his collaborators, and their determination and their altruism, many disabled and elderly people have been given the gift of mobility! The wonderful ability to independently move around and be autonomous which is one of those freedoms that we all too often take for granted.
