NORTH BEACH MEDICAL EQUIPMENT
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Mission Statement
North Beach Medical Equipment is a nonprofit charity that helps area people to live a longer, safer and more enjoyable life. We do this by providing you with much needed medical equipment for as long as you need it - absolutely free. Whether it's a walker you need after a hip replacement, a shower bench to avoid falls or a power scooter to keep up with your active lifestyle, North Beach Medical Equipment is here for you.
About This Cause
OCEAN SHORES, Wash. -- Everything is 100 percent off, reads the sign in the front window. That's Rich Lindquist's humorous way of saying whatever you need from his medical equipment store is free. "It's not about money. It's not about selling something. It's about solving a problem," explained Lindquist who, with his wife Ashlee, opened the non-profit charity in Ocean Shores. "I don't restrict who gets helped. I don't ask what money they make. I don't care," he said. "If you come in here and say 'I need help', I'm going to help you. You're going to leave with a solution." On Friday a woman arrived with her son and parents looking for a wheelchair. Even with insurance, the co-pays and deductibles for her health problems are draining the family's limited finances. "Honestly, we just felt like it was a miracle," said Kathy Verboomen. She left with a manual wheelchair and a like-new electric one, smiling as she wiped away tears. "What sweet people. And they're so kind," she said. "And they just want to make people's lives better. What an awesome, awesome thing you guys are doing." The Lindquists stock their store with mostly donated, used supplies. Wheelchairs, walkers and canes. C-PAP machines for sleep apnea. Scooters. Adult diapers. Many of the same things you can buy in a drug store or medical supply store. Rich cleans all of the equipment and uses his training as a professional mechanic to fix and service whatever needs attention. Ashlee helps run the office. They moved into this commercial space in February after previously running the outlet out of shed and then a storage unit. Rich says they eke out just enough to pay rent on the space and buy new batteries for wheelchairs and other replacement parts. Fund-raising and and a little support from family makes a difference. Ashlee receives social security for her disability. She's legally blind. "It's what I want to do. It's not what I have to do. It's what I get to do," said Rich. "I can't imagine not doing this. And I just want to keep doing it." He and Ashlee are also guided by a strong faith in God. The couple has a long history of community service. They spent a year-and-a-half traveling across the country in a renovated school bus with their daughter, Hannah. The 9-year-old died of a brain aneurysm in 2010 a few days after Christmas. While she did not inspire the creation of the family's free medical supplies outlet, the little girl's spirit helps drive her parents' passion. "She loved people. She never judged," said her mother. "Hannah played with everybody, regardless of their background or how they looked, including kids who were dealing with disabilities." Rich and Ashlee Lindquist ended up in Ocean Shores about six years ago with a broken-down bus and then the tragic loss of their 9-year-old daughter Hannah to a rare aneurysm. Staying at his father’s home near the beach community after a year and a half of travel volunteering across eight Western states, Rich wondered where God and fate would lead him next. It turned out to be the back shed of the Ocean Shores Methodist Church, which also houses the North Beach Senior Resource Center. “What was a shed full of old equipment has grown into an essential part of the North Beach community, where we help over a thousand people a year,” says the mission statement of North Beach Medical Equipment. “We’re just helpful people — the kind of people who say, ‘I’ll do it,’” Rich Lindquist says. The non-profit company started by the Lindquists has now grown to having more than 500 pieces of medical equipment that the couple keep repaired and provide to anyone in need — for free. They supply wheelchairs, electric and manual, walkers, shower supports, even sanitary supplies such as adult diapers, and they now have their own business front and office in the first commercial building you pass near the gates of the city at 899 Point Brown Ave. So far, the Lindquists have helped exactly 1,510 people, they say, a number that gets updated for a board above their office desk. Most recently they helped fit a special electric wheel chair for someone from Chehalis, and they see the need growing all the time for their services. Before landing in the bus parked in his father’s driveway, Lindquist said the couple had been volunteering on a horse rescue operation in Phoenix, at a therapeutic riding stable and a soup kitchen in Salt Lake City. “We were doing that all on basically no money,” he said. It was a mission the couple believed in, having met in Lewiston, Idaho, with Rich working in Washington state across the river in Clarkston and Ashlee living in Lewiston. “A co-worker of mine was dating a co-worker of hers,” he said. Ashlee is legally blind and Rich laughs when she says their first meeting literally was a blind date. “Had a blind date, got a blind wife,” she said. Life has been full of adaptations and changes for the Lindquists. “I was supposed to be a mechanic, and then straight out of mechanic’s college, my arm got broken real bad and I couldn’t be a mechanic any more,” Rich said of what he first pursued as a career path. “I had planned to be a mechanic all my life and in the National Guard.” Having his arm condition, he did odd sales jobs, worked in the records department for the Sheriff’s office, other odd jobs, but he felt called by God to do something more for others. With Ashlee and Hannah, the family always “just had a great time together,” with the daughter being home-schooled, Rich said. “So I bought a 1969 school bus,” and the family hit the road. They drove to Ocean Shores where Rich’s father Victor lived when he wasn’t away in Arizona for the winter. “Three days after Christmas, our little girl died,” Rich said. “She had a brain aneurysm.” That was in 2010, and Rich described a period of not only loss but of searching for a new purpose. “I wandered into the Senior Resource Center there at the Methodist Church and said, ‘I would like to volunteer,’” he recalled. “And I was quickly put in charge. They had an old storage shed full of equipment and no one was able to take care of it. So my wife and I dug into that, and that’s pretty much how we started.” Ashlee recalled being overwhelmed at first: “We just pulled and pulled equipment out of there. It never ended. It was like Mary Poppins pulling all that stuff out of her bag.” Being a former salesman, Rich began promoting the center’s equipment services on business cards, and word slowly got out that he could help anyone needing such equipment at no charge. One new disabled resident with a broken-down wheelchair contacted Lindquist through the North Coast News, and a day later was heading toward the beach in a new electric wheelchair. He helped to supply a new wheelchair for the head of an orphanage in Cambodia as a project for local photographer Ed Schroll. “The more people we helped, the more equipment was donated,” Lindquist said. “We outgrew the storage shed, then ended up in an RV storage unit for about a year and a half.” Needing more funds to buy new equipment, the Lindquists branched off from the Senior Resource Center to form a separate tax deductible charity and then open up their first office. They went from serving 16 people a month to 97, with most of them needing wheelchairs or walkers, shower benches, toilet fixtures, even crutches and canes. They have more than 100 shower benches now in use and also supply a variety of incontinence supplies and pads. Other items include reaching tools, bed assist and tub assist handles and knee scooters. “For the most part, it’s donated equipment. Mom and dad no longer need it, so they give it to someone who can use it,” Rich said. With fund-raising help, they have now been able to buy about $7,000 worth of new equipment. The Lindquists estimate it costs about $1,500 a month just to maintain their current level of service. New batteries for the electric wheelchairs they have in stock cost $200-$300 each, and they have a growing request for more scooters. “The need is really growing,” Rich said. “I try to focus on just North Beach, but from Aberdeen and Hoquiam, more and more people are coming out here. We have people from Taholah, Moclips, even from Westport, because we fill the gap.” Some people have insurance that might not cover such equipment as the Lindquists provide, or insurance that will cover it at a high cost, and they also see many people who just don’t have insurance at all. “Since we don’t charge — ever — there is no limit on who we can help,” Rich said. “If they are willing to come here, I will help them.” The satisfaction of helping someone under those circumstances gives Lindquist “goosebumps. I get so excited over just being able to help people, and just how many we have helped.” The alternative to providing the free service, Rich says, is even more chilling: “Somebody spends money they didn’t really have, or they go without. “ A lot of their clients are elderly or families caring for elderly residents of the area, but a growing number of tourists come by needing a walker or crutches for the weekend, or other equipment the Lindquists can help with. Rich notes that for every person who has a shower chair, that’s one fewer person likely to be injured in a shower fall. “It’s like giving a present to someone and you know it’s exactly what they want,” Rich said of the experience of helping those who stop by. “We are providing freedom for people.” North Beach Medical Equipment Online: www.nbme.care Phone: (360) 289-3733 Address: 899 Pt. Brown Ave. NW #C, Ocean Shores Donate at: P.O. Box 2363, Ocean Shores, WA 98569