Free Wheelchair Mission will roll into Northbrook for a fund-raiser from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. Friday, at Pinstripes, 1150 Willow Road, Northbrook.

Founder Don Schoendorfer will give a special presentation on the affordable wheelchair he developed that costs just $48.35 to manufacture and deliver, according to a press release. Conventional wheelchairs cost anywhere from $500 to $30,000.

Most people in the United States would be shocked to learn that more than 100 million people have no choice but to crawl on the ground, stated Schoendorfer, who added that $50 can change someone's life.

Schoendorfer's mission has distributed more than 315,000 wheelchairs to people with disabilities in more than 75 developing countries around the world, which earned him a 2008 Congressional Medal of Honor Society's Above and Beyond award.

Chris Waddell, a promising young skier at Middlebury College in 1988 before a skiing accident left him paralyzed from the waist down, also will speak Friday and receive Free Wheelchair Mission's Ability Through Mobility award. Waddell now is the most decorated male skier in Paralympic history, winning 12 medals over four games, and spending a total of 11 years on the U.S. Disabled Ski Team.