‘Unique and important service’ provides medical equipment insurance sometimes won’t cover
On a residential block in Southeast Tacoma, a small nonprofit collects unused and forgotten medical equipment and works to get it into the hands of those who need it.
On the side of Shatone Martin’s house is a structure made of wire shelves, two-by-fours, and other odds and ends covered by tarps. The makeshift warehouse is filled with hundreds of pieces of medical equipment and supplies.
Dozens of crutches and walkers line the side of the structure. Shower seats are stacked in the corners. Wheelchairs lean on each other, folded and stacked like cards in a deck. Plastic and wire shelves make narrow walkways, so Martin and her staff can navigate through hordes of bins containing adult diapers, sanitary supplies, nutritional formula, diabetic blood testing supplies and other miscellaneous collections.
The items have been collected by Martin and her staff through donations from people and organizations who have no use for them.
She began collecting the supplies a few years ago after an illness in 2019 left her requiring equipment to assist her mobility. She needed grab-bars installed in her home, a shower chair and a wheelchair ramp. She learned how expensive and difficult it could be to obtain that kind of equipment.
“Insurance doesn’t cover a lot of it,” Martin said. “There were days where I would break down and cry because I just couldn’t afford it.”
From that point, Martin began collecting medical items.
It started with PPE items, bed pads and adult briefs, but quickly turned to wheelchairs, walkers, gowns and shower commodes. She used Facebook to find items people were trying to get rid of. She rented a small storage unit to keep the things she collected, with a plan to make sure they got into the hands of those who needed them.
“From talking to the community, I knew there was a need for everything,” she said.
Martin also began networking. She used social media to answer requests for equipment, made connections with area churches that knew where people who needed equipment were.
“Word started spreading like wildfire,” said Martin. “It was so rewarding and humbling.”
In 2023, Martin filed to make her organization, Lifting Spirits with Helping Hands, an official 501c3 non-profit.
Since then, she has formed many partnerships. Lifting Spirits with Helping Hands supplies homeless shelters and service providers with medical equipment and supplies when needed.
Thersa Power-Drutis is a community organizer with the Tacoma Pierce County Coalition to End Homelessness and a volunteer with Common Good Tacoma, an organization that does homelessness outreach and helps provide the unhoused with medical equipment.
Power-Drutis said that mobility-assisting equipment and medical supplies are a “huge need” for the unhoused as many of them are missing appendages and affected by diabetes. According to Pierce County’s annual surveys of the homeless in 2024 and 2023, nearly one-in-four of all the people counted as living homeless in the region have a physical disability of some kind.
“Its not widely available, and that’s why it is important,” she said.
According to Power-Drutis, very few organizations have the “initiative” or “capacity” to get those kinds of supplies into the hands of the unhoused at the scale that Lifting Spirits with Helping Hands has. She said sometimes an organization has a single spare wheelchair or walker available, but not an inventory like what is stored at Martin’s home.
“She is a rare breed,” Power-Drutis told The News Tribune. “It’s a unique and important service.”
Jevon Adams from Sea Mar Community Health Centers said Lifting Spirits with Helping hands supplies Sea Mar clinics with needles, syringes and diabetic equipment. In an email with The News Tribune, Adams said the nonprofit would supply clinics with wheelchairs, walkers and other aging and disability equipment in the future.
Martin said many of donations come from family members of people who have died or items that just no longer are used.
“For many of them it is important that these items are going to help someone, and that they aren’t going to be sold or thrown away,” she said. “Some will say, ‘Oh, I have crutches that I’ve had for years. I just didn’t know what to do with them.’”
Eventually, the supplies became too much to fit in the storage unit, which became costly to continue renting. So Martin began storing the supplies beside her house.
Kenny Weller, a board member and handyman for the organization, helped construct the homemade warehouse that stands there today.
A small workshop is hidden in the structure that Weller uses to repair equipment that is not in usable condition. Random screws and wheelchair parts sit on a work bench next to power tools and rusted walkers.
“I am learning as I go,” Weller said of the repairs. “I watch YouTube when I don’t know how to do something.”
Desiree Hubbert works as a secretary and board member for Lifting Spirits with Helping Hands. She takes calls and communicates with people on social media to coordinate drop-by donations and to get equipment into the hands of people and organizations who need it.
The staff at Lifting Spirits with Helping Hands said since they have become an official nonprofit, much of their work has to do with documenting inventory — which is constantly changing.
The organization was featured during a Tacoma Pierce County Coalition to End Homelessness meeting in April. Since then, Martin said, their inventory has increased 25% as the exposure led to more donations.
Martin said people and organizations have reached out from King and Thurston counties. She said the nonprofit is one of the only organizations in the Puget Sound area doing this kind of work.
“There is a surprisingly massive need,” Weller said.
Michelle Nims found Lifting Spirits with Helping Hands on Facebook after she was hospitalized with fresh-eating bacteria in her lungs. In an interview with The News Tribune she said she had to relearn how to walk after recovering from her illness.
“When I got out of hospital, there was no direction or help as far as getting the things I needed,” Nims said.
After five months of recovering and needing help from a caregiver, insurance told her it would not cover a new inhaler spacer, which she needed to help her breathe.
“There was a big lack of help from insurance,” she told The News Tribune. “I felt lost and overwhelmed.”
Nims and her caregiver visited Martin’s home needing two or three different things. Nims said they were surprised to learn how much Lifting Spirits with Helping hands had in its inventory.
“They had everything you could possibly need,” Nims said
They left with the inhaler spacer she needed as well as bed rails, a toilet riser, wraps, braces and other miscellaneous items — all free.
“All she wanted to do was help,” Nims said of Martin. “She basically saved me.”
Lifting Spirits with Helping Hands is in the process of applying for grant funding so it can continue to grow. Martin said inventory has almost out-grown capacity, and the organization felt it might need a facility to store it in the near future.
“We would like a better set-up, no knock to myself,” Weller joked as he gestured towards the warehouse and workshop he had made in the yard.
Martin estimated she has spent nearly $5,000 of her own money to get the organization up and running over the past few years — paying for a storage unit, phone services and marketing items like business cards.
“We are doing it because we want to help people not because we want to make a profit,” Hubbert said.
Hubbert said they are frequently contacted by caregivers, nurses and organizations who have specific needs for equipment and supplies. There are items like knee scooters which are not always covered by insurance and can be difficult to find.
“We will sift through it,” Weller said. “If there is something we don’t have, then the hunt is on.”
Martin said she has found the experience rewarding and humbling but said the fact that this work is necessary in the first place to be “incredibly frustrating.”
“As far as why there are so many people that are in need comes down to the healthcare system. That is where we are falling short,” Martin told The News Tribune.
Martin said people need items that insurance companies don’t cover or take months to approve. She said there are situations where insurance will cover a wheelchair but not a walker even if both are needed. She said insurance also will not replace items that break within a certain time frame, so folks could be left without a working piece of equipment.
“I am grateful we are able to bridge that gap, but I am saddened by the fact that we have to,” Martin said in an email to The News Tribune. “I wish there wasn’t a need for what we do.”
This story was originally published June 13, 2024 at 5:00 AM.
