Pheasantland Industries

wheelchair refurbishing

Wheelchair refurbishing workshops are set up at both the South Dakota State Penitentiary in Sioux Falls and the Mike Durfee State Prison in Springfield. The shops employ inmates who fix up wheelchairs so they can then be redistributed to people who need them.

Wheelchairs are collected from 19 cities throughout the U.S., as close as Castlewood, SD and as far away as Seattle, WA and Atlanta, GA. Wheelchair distributions began in 1994 with 15 wheelchairs being shipped. The total number of wheelchairs shipped as of 2002 was 26,360 to 81 different countries. Some of the larger distributions were in the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Mexico, Poland, Romania, Ukraine, and Vietnam.

Inmates working in the wheelchair cleaning workshop are still able to participate in their correctional program, including school, substance abuse treatment and sex offender programming.

Click on the picture(s) below to see a larger version.

An inmate in Springfield working on wheelchairs	Examples of inmate refurbished wheelchairs.