Our Mission
Provide scholarships for higher education to aspiring students from developing nations that face mobility challenges, both physically and economically. We believe that education is the key to economic mobility. Your donations make an impactful opportunity for our scholars and their families.
My wife Laurie and I started Free Wheelchair Mission 20 years ago. Since then, this non-profit has provided 1.2 million wheelchairs for free to people living in the developing world. Over these years, our partners who distribute our wheelchairs have met hundreds of young people with who want to develop their skills or further their education, who have the mental capacity to do this, but lack the finances. Laurie passed away in 2017, but she left many of us feeling we had more to do. So, entirely separate from Free Wheelchair Mission, we started the Laurie Schoendorfer Endowment for Education, or LSEE. LSEE provides scholarships to select applicants who express desire to become self-supporting, to help their families or start their own. In so doing this, their examples will help erase the marginalization against humans with physical disabilities – around the world.
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Thank you & God Bless,
Don Schoendorfer, Laurie's Scholars Founder & Board Member
"Had it not been for scholarships, neither Laurie or I would have had the benefit of a formal education, and there would never have been a Free Wheelchair Mission. This endowment will help eliminate the discrimination of people with mobility disabilities."
-Don Schoendorfer
Laurie’s husband and co-founder of Free Wheelchair Mission.