Wheels for Humanity

Grading:
Ease of Sign Up: 3/5
Physicality: 4/5
Fun Factor: 1/5

Info:
Address: 12750 Raymar St. Unit 4, North Hollywood, CA 91605
Phone: (818) 255-0100
Hours:Monday-Friday 9:00am-5:00pm
Saturday 9:00am-2:00pm
Wheels for Humanity

Time Spent:
9:00am-12:00pm February 26th, 2009

Cut the Crap:

Wheels for Humanity, is a non-profit organization that takes all types of wheel chairs and refurbishes them for use in third world countries. They make about 15 shipments a year. Each of these shipments is a large container filled with several hundred chairs. They are currently developing their own wheelchair that can be produced inexpensively for use overseas.

Personal Experience:

We started by showing up on Tuesday ready to volunteer after confirming with their front office. When we showed up Justin went to the restroom to go wash off his hands because he rode his bike to the shop. Immediately Justin started getting yelled at by people in the office and told he wasn't allowed to be in there. They got more mad and yelled at him to get out. Then we heard from the side office "what are these kids doing here?" Once they realized that we were here to volunteer and not doing court ordered community service, they came in a personally apologized to us. Apparently they had a tough morning with the supervisor's car being broken into, and cell phones around the office being stolen.

Once everything was straightened out, Michael, the Operations Manager, took us on a tour and showed us what the organization was all about. He introduced us to David who was in charge of the volunteers and community service and we made an appointment to come in and help out Thursday.
The organization is for a good cause, however, the work is a bit tedious, like many of the other warehouse type volunteering jobs we have done so far. We spent the morning taking apart basic wheelchairs, cleaning and re greasing the bearings, cleaning off the rust and dirt, and putting the chairs back together. The shop was nice, with all the tools you need to repair the chairs. Zach and I were probably annoying some of the people doing time, with our somewhat inappropriate situational humor. The people where helpful, and gave us tips on getting things done faster. After hearing an ad on the radio telling the listener how with a pill you can have an erection that lasts hours, we also joked about how horrible that would actually be. That was by far the highlight of the day.

All in all, the organization is for a good cause and some of the people doing community service were nice. It's unfortunate that the supervisors weren't very polite, and treated volunteers like criminals. They never came into the shop to mingle with the workers like we had experienced while volunteering at other places. If you really enjoy dismantling things, or really enjoy abuse I would highly recommend volunteering at Wheels for Humanity. All in all our experience greasing nuts was not as pleasurable as you think it would be.