Tulsa Nonprofit Raising Money To Send Wheelchairs To People Across The Globe

Reagan Collins and other occupational therapists are dedicated to helping people with physical disabilities get access to the resources they need in areas across the globe. 

“I just love being able to be a part of that change,” Collins said. “A part of helping those families out and seeing those faces light up."

A couple months ago, the group traveled to Kenya for a research project that would help modify wheelchairs, but when they got there they realized many people did not have access to them at all.

"There's over a thousand kids on a waitlist for just one of the hospitals that we know of in Kenya,” Collins said.

They wanted to do something to help and came up with the idea to start Wings Aloft, a non-profit that provides wheelchairs to people in need across the globe, free of charge.

They have already donated wheelchairs to people in Kenya and Guatemala, including a little boy named Daniel.

He has spina bifida and before he was able to get a wheelchair, he was getting around by sitting on a skateboard and using his hands to push himself forward.

Jessica Tsotsoros is a member of Wings Aloft and helped Daniel get off the ground and into a wheelchair.

"Now he's in a wheelchair, pushing himself happy as can be, and now he has more opportunities, more social interactions, being able to be upright and able to move independently,” Tsotsoros said.

Wings Aloft is trying to raise more money to send 80 more wheelchairs to Kenya by the end of this year, and Tsotsoros and Collins hope more people will join their cause.

"One simple wheelchair can change a whole family, village, and it expands, it's their dignity and their pride and seeing their child upright and talking and having that mobility and going into the community, so it really means a lot to me,” Tsotsoros said. “It's something I never want to stop doing.”

Tsotsoros, Collins and other members from Wings Aloft are planning to go back to Kenya in March.