Need Medical Equipment? The Bally Lions Club Will Come to Your Rescue

by Jane Stahl

The Bally Lions Club Medical Equipment Lending Program offers a valuable service to a 40-mile area as one of the club’s community projects.

The club acquires medical equipment from a variety of sources and lends it out free of charge for as long as someone needs it. Items include almost-new hospital beds, wheelchairs, walkers, canes, crutches, and lift chairs, among other items. When the equipment is no longer needed, the Lions retrieve it and store it until it is needed again.

Storage for the items is in a building that club members erected 2 ½ years ago as part of one community member's Boy Scout project, fulfilling his Eagle Scout requirement. The building’s construction was funded by local community donations and is maintained by a long-time Lions Club member as his full-time retirement project.

“The community really came together to construct and outfit this building for the young Bill Geiger’s Eagle project,” offers club member Lee Heffner.

“And Bill Geiger senior, who owns his own construction business, coordinated the construction and added to the building materials that were donated or funded by other local businesses,” adds Donnie Conrad, who acts as manager of the club’s medical lending program.

Conrad maintains "accurate records about what goes out and what is available (cleaned and inspected)." He describes it as a "full-time job," and says that his wife, who often takes calls when he isn't home, "teases him that the phone is a 'burner/burning phone' because it gets so many calls." 

It is a notable contrast to how the program began by offering two beds that had been acquired when families no longer needed them and didn’t want them to be trashed. Those first two beds were housed in someone’s barn or cellar, and later, in the community’s mower shed.

“We have 38 hospital beds available to whoever needs one,” explains Conrad, a Marine veteran, now retired from decades working at Bally Ribbon Mill. Conrad is also in charge of arranging transport and collection of the equipment, and cleaning and sanitizing the equipment that comes in to the building.

“Currently there are 33 beds out, but I always have one ‘good to go’ for anyone who calls and needs it yesterday,” he quips. “Because we are the place to go for equipment, I’m busy every day,” he notes. Conrad shares that “sometimes we have too much of some equipment, but we will still take more. You never know when more might be needed.”

“We supply needs for Boyertown, Douglassville, Amity Township, for example; I even had a gentleman come from Kimberton. Boyertown doesn’t have the space to store the equipment; we’re the place to go for it.”

“I’ve heard so many sad stories,” shares Conrad. “One woman, living exclusively on Social Security, was sleeping on a couch; her only chair was a wheelchair. We took her a bed, and I told her it was hers for the rest of her life. But when she entered a nursing home, she made sure to contact me to return it. She was so grateful that we could help her.”

In another story, a woman was being kicked out of her living space. Conrad offered a lift chair and a bed when she was able to find a place to live. “It’s such a good feeling to know you’ve helped someone when they’re ‘down and out.’”

There is no doubt the free equipment is life-changing for some folks who receive it, and the people donating are just so grateful to move it along and not have it end up in a landfill where it does no one any good.  

Call Donnie Conrad at 610-845-2564 if you or a loved one needs to borrow a wheelchair, walker, commode, crutches, or bed - free of charge.

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