Paralyzed after a skiing accident, Idahoan Nathan Ogdenfounded Chair The Hope, a nonprofit delivering thousandsof wheelchairs worldwide and transforming lives throughmobility and purpose.
Nathan Ogden is sitting in the center of a small Mexican village outside Mérida on the Yucatán Peninsula. Families who traveled for hours line up around him. The women wear colorful embroidered blouses (huipiles), while children play near outdoor vendors who hawk their wares in the humid atmosphere. There’s an air of expectation: behind Ogden and a small army of volunteers in matching t-shirts is a mountain of gleaming wheelchairs. One by one, individuals in need receive the life-changing gift of a wheelchair—their faces blooming with happiness or relief. This is all in a day’s work for Ogden, co-founder of Chair The Hope, a nonprofit organization that delivers wheelchairs to families around the world.
In 2001, the young father and native Idahoan broke his neck in a skiing accident that left him temporarily paralyzed. “I knew that I would at least walk again; I may not run, but I’ll walk,” Ogden remembered. 13 months later, a second injury permanently paralyzed him from the chest down. However, Ogden didn’t let the accident dampen his spirits for long; he credits the support from his family—especially his wife Heather—and his positive mental outlook. “I was born with a…glass half full type of attitude where I’m not going to let something just knock you down and keep you down” he said.
In 2017, Ogden’s wife suggested that the family complete a relay-style bike ride from Mount Bachelor in Oregon—the site of Ogden’s skiing accident—to the Santa Monica Pier in Los Angeles to raise money for a wheelchair charity. For 11 days, the Ogden family rode from the snow to the sea in every kind of weather (Ogden used a special handcycle) and raised $42,000.
Creating a nonprofit based on the experience wasn’t on his radar, but something that happened to Ogden after the family got back from Los Angeles gave him the idea. “I’m down at Boise State for an early September football game,” Ogden recounted, “and someone stole my wheelchair.” Ogden found himself in the public eye as the story of his stolen chair went viral, circulating in both the local and national news.
People began reaching out to him and his family either with donations or offers to help him raise more money. The family eventually raised around $100,000, which they donated to the Wheelchair Foundation with the caveat that the organization let the Ogden family help deliver the wheelchairs themselves. The experience of handing out wheelchairs in small towns across Mexico inspired the Ogden family to create Chair The Hope less than a year later. “All of a sudden, it started to come clear to us…that maybe this is why I broke my neck twice. So that I could do this nonprofit [where] I can now fight to help others,” he said.
To date, Chair The Hope has raised enough money that the Ogden family, assisted by the Wheelchair Foundation and a national roster of volunteers, has delivered 5,700 wheelchairs on 26 trips to ten countries around the world. Ogden stresses that the impact of even a single wheelchair can be huge both for the individuals and their caretakers. “It’s said that for every wheelchair we give out, it positively affects ten lives. It’s helping the family, the friends, the neighbors, everyone else who’s taking care of that person,” he said. Chair The Hope has also worked with local construction companies like McAlvain and CBH Homes, who donate materials and labor, on accessibility/mobility makeovers of homes and yards for disabled Idahoans.In the future, Ogden hopes to raise enough money that they can double the number of wheelchairs they give away on each trip. Everywhere they visit, Ogden noted, the demand far outstrips the supply: “[On] 50 percent of the trips, if not more…we have people show up because they hear that there’s wheelchairs being given away…and we have to turn people away because we just don’t have enough wheelchairs.” Ogden also hopes to expand the number of mobility makeovers they do for Idahoans who need them. “If I can help another local person so that they can keep working and providing for their family…then I feel obligated to do that. And because I get it, because I live it, I’ll fight harder for it,” he said.
