Bella’s Bumbas’ mission is spreading worldwide

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, then you’re very familiar with Bella’s Bumbas.

Bella’s Bumbas is a non-profit organization run by Webster residents Marty Parzynski and Rebecca Orr, dedicated to building miniature wheelchairs for children with a wide variety of mobility issues. To date they have shipped more than 1400 chairs to children in at least 27 countries, often adapting the chairs for each child’s individual needs, and charging the families only for shipping.

Although the world has in many ways come screeching to a halt these last several months, children’s need for these special chairs has not slowed, and neither has Rebecca and Marty’s commitment to filling that need.

On the contrary, they’ve devised a plan to get even MORE chairs shipped worldwide, more economically, by packing and sending international “kits.”

Rebecca explained in an email,

Bella’s Bumbas has been trying out sending “kits” internationally to a few countries, and having success with it. We can UPS all the needed assembly parts, minus the seats, for three to four Bella’s Chairs. (We’ve sent them) to Indonesia, Philippines, and now we would like to start in Malaysia.

In Indonesia, they receive a box of parts from us, purchase a comparable local seat to attach and send within the country to the family in need. The family pays a portion of the international shipping of the parts, and the local shipping from our volunteer in Indonesia.

The kits are saving everyone money all around. 

If we were to ship one completed Bella’s Bumba to each Indonesian family that requests one, it would be approx $350.00 USD. We can send the same size box with three to four kits to our volunteer for nearly the same price.

What started just three years ago, when Marty cobbled together the first Bumba for his niece Bella, who was born with spina bifida, has now spread across the world, enriching thousands of children’s lives with newfound mobility. 

How you can help

Even though many of their parts are donated, Bella’s Bumbas does have to buy parts and cover some overhead expenses. If you’d like to help out, visit their GoFundMe page, where you can also read more about their background and continued efforts.  

They could also use boxes. The perfect sizes are 50 cm. x 45 cm. x 28 cm. (Rebecca uses two of these for the small chairs); 28″ x 20″ x 14″, and 29″ x 14″ x 24″ are great for the large chairs. If you’re getting Amazon deliveries regularly, you might also have the boxes they need; the ones that say P5 on the bottom are perfect (25.75″ x 20.75″ x 16.5″).

So if you have any boxes that are the right size, and would like to donate them, please connect connect with Marty and Rebecca through the Bella’s Bumbas Facebook page or email bellasbumbas@gmail.com. 

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Tags: Bella's Bumbas