Snohomish County Business Journal

Published April 2003

Donor Closet helps those
in need gain mobility

Snohomish County Business Journal/KIMBERLY HILDEN
Bob Chisholm repairs one of the wheelchairs donated to the Donor Closet. Chisholm and fellow volunteers Gary Turcott, Craig Rubins, Mike Bemis, Roger Oliver, Russ Johnson, Pat Reed and Ralph Larson make the Donor Closet work, Director Bill Brayer said.

By Kimberly Hilden
SCBJ Assistant Editor

Situated on Highway 99, inside a dozen 10-foot-by-20-foot units of an Edmonds self-storage facility, is the Donor Closet, a program that recycles donated wheelchairs, walkers and other mobility equipment to people who might otherwise go without.

COUNTY
NONPROFITS
A series sponsored
by CityBank
The Snohomish County Business Journal continues a yearlong look at nonprofit agencies
and businesses throughout
Snohomish County.

An arm of the nonprofit Multiple Sclerosis Helping Hands, the Donor Closet started a few years ago as a service to the MS community but has grown to include others with mobility problems, said Bill Brayer, program director.

“We’re a people-oriented organization — people helping people,” Brayer said, noting that the program is run solely by volunteers who repair donated items as well as staff the Donor Closet, located at 23031 Highway 99, during its hours of operation, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Item donations to the Donor Closet come from all quarters: care centers that want to dispose of older hospital beds or walkers; relatives of the deceased who may have used an electric scooter, bathtub transfer bench or other equipment; and individuals, businesses and other nonprofit organizations who support the cause.

Spring Follies
to entertain,
raise funds

Multiple Sclerosis Helping Hands is presenting its annual Spring Follies fund raiser at 7:30 p.m. April 5 at the Shoreline Center Auditorium, 18560 First Ave. NE, in Shoreline.

The evening of musical entertainment will include vocal and tap-dancing performances. Cost for the show is $20 per person.

For more information, call 206-546-1011.

“We’ve received funds from the Boeing Employees Community Fund and United Way,” Brayer said. “Frontier Bank of Lynnwood also has been very supportive of us.”

Testimony to such community support can be seen in the storage units, which are lined with electric and manual wheelchairs, walkers, scooters, hospital beds and a variety of lifts, safety rails and other equipment.

The donated items the program receives are repaired and refurbished before being made available, at a fraction of their original cost, to needy clients, whose monetary donations go toward purchasing more equipment and parts, Brayer said.

Since its inception more than three years ago, the program has placed 5,000 pieces of donated equipment in the hands of those in need.

For more information on the Donors Closet, call 206-718-0426, send e-mail to WBrayer@mshelp.org or visit online at www.mshelpinghands.org.

Back to the top/April 2003 Main Menu