At DeeRay’s Auto Body Restoration in Shelley, Idaho, it’s not just cars that come out looking and running good as new. Through a partnership with the local chapter of the Vietnam Veterans Association, DeeRay’s owner Brett Walters also refurbishes motorized wheelchairs for needy veterans — free of charge.
Walters retools old wheelchairs so that they run smoothly, and he also fixes their upholstery and gives them a new coat of paint. “It takes a week, on and off, to work on one and get it ready,” Waters tells WIFI/CNN. “It’s just a really good feeling. It really makes you happy, and you see their faces.”
Shane Ackerschott, a former member of the Army National Guard, became a paraplegic after a work accident. Recently, he received of one Walters’s rehabbed wheelchairs. Ackerschott says, “If this man does this all in the kindness of his heart, he’s truly a saint, I mean to do this, cause there’s a lot of vets out there who can’t afford things like this.”
MORE: Meet A Disabled Veteran Jump Starting Soldiers’ Cars — and Their Lives