HEREABOUTS SANDRA BAER
Bob Wheeler, 60, of Washington Twp., is a useful man to know if you want to donate equipment, or supplies to underserved people, but don’t know how to go about it.
Wheeler recently helped Kathy Welfare and her husband, Dr. Richard Welfare, of Washington Twp., donate the furniture and equipment from Welfare’s former dental office in Bellbrook.
“The Welfares paid to store the equipment in a storage facility, because they knew somebody could use it,” said Wheeler, a member of Epiphany Lutheran Church in Washington Twp. “A connection was made and I was able to assist them to find a group that could help them.”
Wheeler was born in Detroit, but moved with his parents to Roseville, Mich., where he was a member of the football team and worked part-time in a grocery store before graduating from Roseville High School in 1966. He attended Michigan Technological University in Houghton, Mich., where he earned a degree in metallurgical engineering. He met his wife, Jean, at the Houghton pool where she worked as a life guard.
In 1969, the couple married, and Jean worked as a speech therapist in Houghton while Wheeler completed his engineering degree. They moved to Gary, Ind., where Wheeler worked at a U.S. Steel plant in quality control before accepting a position in sales and technical services for Wisconsin Steel, which was located in South Chicago. Wheeler eventually moved to Washington Twp. where he had a short-term job in Dayton before accepting a position at Consolidated Metal Products in Cincinnati. Another employee at Consolidated Metal Products, who was from Paraguay, started a nonprofit organization, School of Special Smiles, to fund a school for handicapped and indigent children in his village.
Since Wheeler traveled to Brazil on business, he would carry supplies for the school in an extra suitcase. He also became a board member of the nonprofit, a position he still holds.
Wheeler and his wife, who teaches in a Dayton Public Schools deaf preschool class, also were raising their three children. Rob graduated from Alter High School in 1998 and lives in Springfield. He is employed as the second assistant supervisor at the NCR Golf Club in Dayton. Andrew graduated from Alter High School in 2000 and Wittenberg University with a degree in art and currently works in Springfield for Ambience, a company that stages events on the corporate level. Lauren, who graduated from Centerville High School in 2004, earned an art degree at the University of Cincinnati and currently manages a Hot Topic retail store in Kentucky.
Wheeler found another opportunity to help with donations when he and other members of Global Mission Team from Epiphany Lutheran Church were asked to buy and deliver machine parts to an Ohio missionary couple in Uganda.
Along the way, he learned about Orphan Grain Train, a nonprofit Lutheran organization founded by the Rev. Ray S. Wilke, a Lutheran minister from Norfolk, Neb., who realized the need to transport items after making a missionary trip to Latvia.
When Lee Ravlin, a member of the Greenebucs Chapter of Ambucs and a member of Epiphany Lutheran Church, alerted Wheeler that Dr. Welfare had dental equipment he wanted to donate, Wheeler contacted Orphan Grain Train, which picked up the equipment in August and is now delivering it to Madagascar.
For more information about donating equipment, or supplies, e-mail Wheeler at rwheelerjr@hotmail.com or visit the Orphan Grain Train Web site at www.ogt.org.
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ist at (937) 432-9054 or jjbaer@aol.com.
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