A free medical-equipment network coordinated by Rural Action has put wheelchairs, rollators and hospital beds into the hands of more than 4,000 people across southeast Ohio since 2021, at no cost to the families who need them, according to reporting by The Daily Yonder published November 5. The program, run through more than 30 church partners across Appalachian Ohio, distributed $207,710 worth of equipment for free in 2025 alone, The Daily Yonder reported.
The effort began with home health aide Milena Miller in the Athens area, who noticed that clients often used at-home medical equipment for only a few weeks or months after a hospital stay, while other families were paying several thousand dollars for the same items new, The Daily Yonder reported. Miller began collecting and redistributing equipment herself before Ed Newman, who headed the Zero Waste Program at Rural Action, saw that the idea could scale inside the Athens-based community development organization’s zero-waste work — keeping nearly-new equipment in use and out of landfills.
Rural Action officially opened its medical equipment donation program in 2021, according to the organization’s own program page, and recipients can donate equipment back when they no longer need it, so a single hospital bed or power chair can serve several families in turn. Rural Action houses some equipment itself at its Athens base, but most of the network runs through churches and community spaces that store equipment, take donations, field requests and supply volunteers, while Rural Action’s team coordinates supplies between partners and provides logistical support, The Daily Yonder reported.
Program director Maria Bonner told The Daily Yonder that insurance technicalities, more than a lack of coverage, are what strand many families: most plans cover only one wheelchair every five years, so a breakdown in year four can leave the user paying out of pocket. “Even if they have insurance, it doesn’t cover this [equipment],” Bonner told The Daily Yonder. She also credited the church network at the program’s core, telling The Daily Yonder: “Churches are instrumental to the network.”
In New Lexington, the Perry County end of the network runs out of High Street Community Church, where Tricia Tilley — a mother of a child with special needs — operates the site largely on her own, The Daily Yonder reported. Tilley began collecting equipment in church storage after a neighboring town started a similar effort during Covid, and requests and donations have grown sharply since. “Our whole community knows about us now,” Tilley told The Daily Yonder.
The Daily Yonder reported that many recipients are veterans facing long waits for equipment through official channels, and described a recent recipient in hospice care who received a motorized wheelchair through the network that let him spend several hours a day visiting his wife in a nursing home — a chair the program expects to pass on to his wife afterward. Growth has come mostly by word of mouth, as churches and neighbors learn the network exists, according to The Daily Yonder’s reporting.
Families who need equipment, or who have equipment to donate, can reach Rural Action’s Medical Surplus Distribution program in Athens, according to the organization’s website; the program accepts items such as wheelchairs and walkers but cannot take broken, rusted or expired items, prescription drugs or sharps. The network’s next chapter, as The Daily Yonder reported it, is simply more of the same — more church partners, more storage space, and more equipment moving from garages and closets to the southeast Ohioans who need it most.
Photo: Sporeilly94, CC BY-SA 4.0