PENNEY FARMS —As Penney Retirement Community celebrates its centennial year, it’s important to highlight everything that makes the humble, purposeful community what it is today.

That includes its commitment to serving others.

Hidden in the crevices of the 192-acre campus is a warehouse where hope is meticulously crafted and stored for those in need. It’s called Mobility Worldwide. It houses rows of boxes stuffed with hundreds of Personal Energy Transportation (PET) carts. The three-wheeled, hand-powered wheelchairs are designed for those who can’t walk because of an accident, birth defects, land mines or war.

Each is hand-crafted, built and painted from the warehouse and sent to remote areas around the world. Although Mobility Worldwide is a separate entity from Penney Retirement Community, their mission has lasted for years on Penney’s campus.

“Our mission was to give the gift of mobility to the leg disabled [and] to give meaningful work to retirees,” said volunteer David Quirk.

It all started with Larry Hills back in 1999. Hills was a blueberry farmer in Michigan who became an agricultural missionary in Zambia and the Republic of Congo. It was there that he witnessed a true need for mobilization amongst those who were physically disabled. One of the things that stood out to him was a paralyzed woman with a baby strapped to her back trying to do something as simple as get water.

When he returned home, Hills moved to Penney and began working with an engineer to build the carts. From 1994 to 2001, they tried various designs, eventually settling on the current model: a wood structure comprised of solid wheelbarrow tires and a bicycle chain. Each takes about 17 and a half hours to construct.

The free PET carts have been sent to more than 100 different countries, including China, Russia and Kenya.

“We’ve done over 120,000. But the need is 20 million plus,” Quirk said.

Just last year, Penney President/CEO Teresa Scott traveled to Kenya to help distribute 200 of the carts volunteers had constructed for Partners for Care.

Though the cost to build a PET cart is about $350, it’s all done strictly through donations. Mobility Worldwide at Penney is its second largest producer, churning out as many as 800 carts within a year’s span.

The need continues to be great. Which makes the work of countless volunteers greatly cherished.