SANTA ANA – Bed to bench, bench to bed. For 50 years, Juana Francisca's world stretched 25 feet from her bedroom to the front yard of a small hut in a Peruvian village. Every day, her brother carried the arthritic woman to a wooden seat near the front door where she stayed until he returned from work. She heard crews building a park nearby 30 years ago, but could never watch the children play. Visiting was limited to friends stopping by. No one could cart her to church where parishioners prayed for a miracle. And then, last August, Santa Ana inventor Don Schoendorfer rolled into town with the gift of mobility. With volunteers from his Free Wheelchair Mission in Orange County, Schoendorfer lifted Francisca, 75, into a $41 contraption manufactured from a plastic lawn chair and 24-inch mountain-bike tires.

Roads wrinkled with rocks and ruts are no problem for these wheels.

"When I put Juana in her wheelchair, it was almost as if she flew," said Schoendorfer, 55.

"You see people who have given up hope for anything life-changing," said Schoendorfer, who left for Chile with his wife and three daughters Dec. 15 to deliver more wheelchairs to the disabled.

"It's like winning the lottery, where these folks become wealthy in a physical way," he said. "Adults with worn-out knees, women who rode in baby carriages and youths who traveled piggyback everywhere can sit and have dinner with their families. They don't have to be filthy any more crawling along streets. Children can go to school. Adults can get jobs."

Francisca is one of more than 31,000 disabled people in 37 countries – from Angola to Mexico – to receive a free wheelchair since the program began in Schoendorfer's garage in 1999. Today, 40 organizations throughout the world help Free Wheelchair Mission find potential recipients.

Churches in those developing countries estimate that millions of disabled people have to crawl or lie in bed all day because they don't have transportation. His goal is to provide 20 million wheelchairs by the year 2010.

The chairs cannot be distributed in the United States because of liability issues. Schoendorfer says insurance would cost his nonprofit organization more than $200,000 a year.

Schoendorfer, a mechanical engineer who holds 50 patents, wasn't always charitable. After graduating from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he set out to build a fortune. He helped invent machines that separate blood, but eventually believed he wasn't "impacting anyone's life that much."

In 1979 while touring Morocco with his wife, Laurie, Schoendorfer came upon a woman dragging herself across a dirt road. The image of her using only one arm while beggars sneered at her from the side of the road was seared into his memory.

Twenty years later, Schoendorfer made a commitment.

He says he was searching for ways to guide his teenage daughters and found answers and opportunities to help at Mariners Church in Irvine. "I think Don really got involved when he started tutoring the poor on Minnie Street in Santa Ana," said the Rev. Kenton Beshore, senior pastor at the church. "He developed a heart for giving."

Schoendorfer decided to quit his job, and his wife returned to work. For nine months, he tinkered with wheelchair designs, determined to produce a chair costing less than the $500 commercial model.

A prototype emerged: a $3 resin lawn chair, inexpensive bicycle tires, industrial casters, an emergency brake and an air-pump kit. A former co-worker, William Goodwin of Lake Forest, helped assemble the first 100 chairs in Schoendorfer's garage.

He found factories in Hong Kong and Shanghai willing to produce the equipment for $41 wholesale including shipping, Schoendorfer says.

They pack 550 in a shipping container with photo-instructions for assembling the equipment in 15 minutes.

Schoendorfer hooked up with a medical team traveling to India so he could deliver his first wheelchairs. He says they drove past a city dump to a hut where Lotus Blossom, a 17-year-old with muscular dystrophy, lived with her family.

"When we first placed Lotus Blossom in the chair, everyone present was moved by her smile," he said. "It was like the sun rose in that dark hut."

Goodwin, 48, who once crunched numbers at the Pentagon, offered to set up a business plan. The men established a $3 million budget for 75,000 wheelchairs, counting on contributors to make the goal. They locked in the Samueli Foundation and the Foundation for Christian Stewardship as regular contributors.

"We even had the king of Ghana at a fund-raiser that drew 300 people and raised $250,000 in three hours," Goodwin said.

Other evangelical organizations were eager to get on board. C.V. Vadavana, who is pursuing a master's degree at Biola University, linked Free Wheelchair with Satyam India. Alan Bergstedt withChina Source in Fullertonhelped with referrals in that nation.

"There are 100 organizations on the waiting list hoping to distribute our chairs," Schoendorfer said. "But some may not qualify. We have mission teams checking them out."

This Christmas, Free Wheelchair Mission has accumulated enough pledges to buy 16,500 chairs, and the funding continues to roll in.

"Our small staff works out of their homes, and we spend the day e-mailing and making contacts," said Schoendorfer, whose sign above the entryway of his Santa Ana home reads, "Do good."

In Pucon, Chile, Schoendorfer and his group gave away eight wheelchairs over the weekend. One went to 82-year-old Marta. He asked her what she wanted to do now that she had wheels.

"I want to go around and see all the changes that I have heard about in this city," she said. "Through you, God has blessed me."