CA Boy Raises $42k, Sends Wheelchairs Overseas

Tyler Hochman describes his effort to send 280 wheelchairs to Israel with a metaphor.

“I’m picturing myself as a little snowball,” says the 13-year-old resident of Beverly Hills, Calif. “And I’m going to grow, get more people involved, keep getting more people to help, and eventually my little snowball … is going to help the entire world.”

It all started with a wish to do something meaningful for his Bar Mitzvah. In the end, Hochman raised $42,000 and enlisted organizations on two continents to his cause: the American Wheelchair Mission, Chabad-Lubavitch of Westwood in Los Angeles, and the Chabad Terror Victims Project in Israel.

Hochman came to the American Wheelchair Mission through his father, Nathan Hochman, a former assistant U.S. attorney who met the organization’s director, Chris Lewis. A visit to the non-profit’s website sold the teenager on the idea of aiding individuals’ mobility.

“What really hooked me was that they don’t help one person, they help 10 people,” said Tyler, pointing out that the donation of a single wheelchair has a profound impact not just on its rider, but on his or her family and community as well.

According to the organization, more than 100 million people in the world are in need of wheelchairs, but cannot afford them.

But Hochman also wanted to help out the Holy Land.

“I felt a connection to my homeland,” said the Brentwood School eighth grader.

Marshall Grossman, a partner at Hochman’s father’s law firm, suggested Chabad of California. Rabbi Chaim Cunin, whose Westwood operation runs synagogue services, a Hebrew school, Torah classes and a Jewish ritual bath, arranged to have the wheelchairs distributed throughout Israel by the Chabad Terror Victims Project.

“Some of these people had wheelchairs that were broken or falling apart, and some were waiting for someone like Tyler to come along and help them,” said Rabbi Yossi Swerdlov, associate director of the Chabad Terror Victims Project.

Article continued (chabad.org)