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It was when he saw a young girl in a traditional chador and veil do a wheelie around the room that Pat DeTemple said he knew he was making a difference. 

The Electronic Media Manager for the City of Berkeley returned last Wednesday from a trip to Tehran to distribute wheelchairs as part of an effort by the Wheelchair Foundation. After raising about $75,000, he and nine other Berkeley residents paid their own flights to Iran. 

Fred Gerhard, the distribution manager for the Wheelchair Foundation who was the tenth member of the team, said he was impressed by the commitment and enthusiasm of the Berkeley group.  

“We don’t usually get so many U.S. volunteers,” he said. 

Working with the Red Crescent Society, the Red Cross of Iran, the team helped distribute 480 wheelchairs to women and men of all ages who could not afford their own. 

“These were really poor people,” said DeTemple. “They were already not well off economically and having a disability made their lives doubly hard. There’s a connection between mobility and poverty.” 

About six percent of Iran’s population needs a wheelchair but cannot afford one. A shoddy wheelchair still costs $180 in Iran, the equivalent of one year’s salary. It costs $150 for the Wheelchair Foundation to buy, ship and distribute a wheelchair that will last for years. 

“You change an individual’s life when you give them a wheelchair,” said Mark Rhoades, a friend and fellow city staffer. For those who don’t have cars or a lot of jewelry, he said, “It’s probably the biggest thing they own.” 

Giving a person mobility, added Erin Banks, was the first step to a better life. “First they get mobility, then they can get education, get a job, and support a family.” 

The shock was written plainly on the people’s faces, said Soheyl Modarressi, a native of Iran now living in Berkeley. 

“They just couldn’t believe someone who doesn’t speak the language would get on their knees and adjust the wheelchair for their comfort. A lot of them were abandoned by their families or institutions,” he said. 

The trip was a life-changing event not just for the disabled people in Iran and their caregivers, but also for the Berkeley delegation. 

Banks said that it shattered a lot of preconceptions. Although friends and family were worried about her going to a place on President George W. Bush’s “Axis of Evil,” she felt no hostility towards Americans.  

Indeed, she said they seemed eager to meet the team. Groups of schoolgirls would even walk alongside them to practice their English. 

The “silent solidarity” of women also surprised her since media accounts have painted women in the Middle East as uniformly downtrodden.  

“When I saw women in the street, they would make eye contact and smile at each other,” said Banks. When she did not know what to do with the chador she was handed at a mosque, a teenage girl came over and, wordlessly, started to show her how to wear it. 

Going to Iran and talking to the people revealed how complex the political and social landscape is there, said DeTemple. 

“It’s easy to think one thing when you read the paper. But there are 70 million people there, each with life stories and ambitions and aspirations. It’s not easily reduced to one interpretation,” he said. 

The group, however, was surprised by how little people thought about disability issues in Iran. Not only were cities not planned with disabled people in mind, but few seemed aware that there even was a need for wheelchairs.  

The group plans to continue their work. They had to turn some people away who needed specialized wheelchairs for polio or specific injuries and could not use the standard ones the group brought. They also hope to bring wheelchairs to nonurban areas. 

“Our goal here is to eliminate the need for wheelchairs in Iran,” said Modarressi. In the next four months, they hope to deliver another 240 new wheelchairs and 200 specialized, refurbished wheelchairs. 

They plan to hold another fundraising dinner since their first event at the Santa Fe Grill, owned by Ahmad Behjati, another member of the delegation, was so successful.  

They will also continue to work with the Wheelchair Foundation since they agreed it was the most organized charity they had ever worked with. They also appreciated the fact that benefactor Kenneth Behring not only matches donations but pays for all administrative overhead. 

Modaressi, who hatched the wheelchairs-for-Iran idea two years ago after a visit to hospitals where two or three wheelchairs had to service 700, said that he and his group of friends will not stop helping people because it is addictive. While problems such as AIDS and hunger that will take much more longer to solve, he said immediate impact here was very rewarding. 

“You can see their smile and see the amount of difference you can make,” said Modaressi. “You can see their old wheelchair and you you think, ‘How can they even sit on this thing?’ It’s so sad. “Now it’s like changing clothes after 40 years.”