Mobility Worldwide celebrates founder Mel West as he turns 100
When a person has the ability to respond and help, then that person has a responsibility to do just that, says Mel West, founder of Mobility Worldwide, who celebrated his 100th birthday Thursday surrounded by friends, community members and Mobility Worldwide volunteers.
The outreach mission of Mobility Worldwide of providing hand-cranked wheelchairs started roughly 30 years ago, around the same time West was turning 70. West is a retired Methodist minister. After leaving seminary, West and his late wife, Barbara, were tasked by their bishop to work with the World Council of Churches to get them involved with outreach missions.
"Our theology was a simple theology that calls one to ... be a servant," West said. "If you see a human need, make that the cross bar on the cross. If you are able to respond, then you have response ability. So, we began a ministry of involving people in reaching out where there is a human need. Any kind, large or small."
This included sending rebuilt typewriters, tools and more to Larry Hill, a missionary in the Democratic Republic of Congo, then known as Zaire. About 30 years ago, West met Hill for the first time at a fundraising event in Des Moines, Iowa, where Hill asked West for one more thing.
"We need a hand-cranked, three-wheeled, sturdily built wheelchair with hauling capacity so (people) can make a living," West said, relating Hill's message. Otherwise many people there had to to crawl places on their hands or be immobile because of injuries.
These injuries possibly were from landmines, from which the Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor notes 58 casualties and seven fatalities in 2022 in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
After meeting Hill, West returned home and started to draw up plans. He then connected with Earl Miner from Marshfield on designing the wheelchair. After a couple of years of prototyping, they landed on a final design, which is in production at affiliates around the globe, including in Columbia.
"I built them in my garage at first. Later on we got a small building, then a bigger building and then two years ago we moved in here," West said about the East Meyer Industrial Drive location, where there are welding shops, woodworking shops, assembly shops and warehouse storage. The organization is volunteer-driven and some aspects of the wheelchairs, such as powder coating paint on metal pieces, is donated by other businesses, he added.
"If you do a good thing and do it well and let people know about it, good people want to help," West said, adding the wheelchairs "have lifted 130,000 people off the ground. Many of them have a job and they go to school, to work, meet their friends. The gift of mobility is an amazing gift.
"It makes a person human. Without mobility, they crawl, sleep on a pallet, are carried in. ... The kids who were teased before become honored students."
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West attributes his longevity in reaching 100 years old to following the rules.
"I've never consumed a drop of alcohol, I've never smoked a cigarette, I've never consumed drugs. I have exercised and exercised my mind. I have eaten carefully and done what you need to do to keep the body — I had one heart bypass but I bounced back from that — I've done what you need to do to keep going," he said.
He was happy and honored to see so many friends, some of whom traveled from hundreds of miles away, West said.
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Charles Dunlap covers local government, community stories and other general subjects for the Tribune. You can reach him at cdunlap@columbiatribune.com or @CD_CDT on Twitter. Subscribe to support vital local journalism.
This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Mobility Worldwide founder Mel West celebrates 100th birthday
