By Steve Huffman
shuffman@salisburypost.com
Melanie Sink said she felt darn good about the volunteer work she was involved in Thursday morning.
“You don’t get to see the end result,” Sink said of her efforts. “But you know there’s someone on the other end.”
Sink and about a half-dozen other volunteers busied themselves by loading 300 used wheelchairs into a tractor-trailer.
The wheelchairs will be hauled to Charleston, S.C., then shipped to Bangalore, India, where they’ll be refurbished by prisoners before being given to poor who are in dire need of their services.
“When it’s all done, they’ll be like brand-new chairs,” said Fred Aggers, the founder of Earthen Vessels Ministry, a Salisbury-based organization that provides wheelchairs to the needy.
Aggers, a retired salesman, started the ministry in 1993. He and other volunteers collect wheelchairs from throughout North and South Carolina, and then, about three times a year, send them to prisons where they’re refurbished.
Typically, the work is done by prisoners in the United States. Thursday’s shipment was in conjunction with Wheels for the World, a ministry that provides wheelchairs to the needy in Third World countries.
“Most are restored in the United States,” Aggers said. “This shipment is unusual.”
He said since founding the ministry, at least 24 shipments of wheelchairs have made it to points around the world. Aggers and others serving the ministry have provided wheelchairs to thousands of individuals who otherwise would have been forced to do without.
Aggers and those who worked Thursday are all members of Salisbury’s First Presbyterian Church.
“If something like this comes up, I get on the phone and make a few calls and get enough people to get the work done,” Aggers said of the task of recruiting volunteers.
Earthen Vessels Ministry rents a warehouse on Franklin Street where the wheelchairs are stored.
The process of moving the wheelchairs from the warehouse to a waiting tractor-trailer is relatively simple, but fairly time-consuming.
Aggers pointed out that, as is the case with most jobs, the more people who show up, the faster the work is done.
On Thursday, a row of wheelchairs was first loaded onto the floor of the trailer, then sheets of plywood were set on top. On top of the plywood, another row of wheelchairs was added.
“It doesn’t take as long as you might think,” said Brad Farrah, a volunteer, referring to the process.
Then Farrah motioned toward another volunteer, Michael Tart, who was a few years younger than his cohorts.
“He’s got a good, strong back,” Farrah said, grinning. “Unlike me.”
Aggers said Maersk-Sealand is shipping for free the wheelchairs that were loaded Thursday.
The name Earthen Vessels draws on a biblical analogy that compares the human body to a clay pot, Aggers said. Although our bodies are durable, they are also fragile and subject to damage. The key, Aggers said, is in understanding that the potter has a use for cracked or chipped pots.
“People need to realize that God has a plan for all of us, whether or not we have physical or mental difficulty,” he said.