OC Register
By CAMERON BIRD
June 3, 2008

The money flooded in, stopping at just the right amount.

"I'm sure there's a connection. We're kind of a faith-based organization," said Don Schoendorfer, founder of Free Wheelchair Mission, explaining his hunch about how the nonprofit organization secured enough funds to dispatch 4,400 low-cost wheelchairs to China's earthquake-ravaged Sichuan Province.

Starting this week, a Chinese factory in contract with the Irvine-based nonprofit will begin rolling out wheelchairs. Red Cross volunteers will make several deliveries of the mountain-bike wheel-mounted chairs through at least the end of the month.

Mariners Church in Irvine, the Chinese Christian Herald Crusade and readers of the Free Wheelchair Mission newsletter all chipped in for the aid. And a wheelchair manufacturer provided a matching donation.

Schoendorfer said this isn't the first time his organization has met its fundraising goals by a seemingly divine intervention.

"We've come up almost every time within 10 percent of what we've asked for," he said. "We don't want to be too bold in our requests because we have to be realistic with our peers and God."

The organization's ultimate monetary goal for the project is $500,000.

Information: www.freewheelchairmission.org.