Hays ? Work by inmates at the Norton Correctional Facility will eventually help disabled people across the world.

The inmates are part of a national ministry that finds and refurbishes wheelchairs and walkers, then sends them to people around the world who generally cannot afford to get their own.

The repair work is done on behalf of Wheels for the World, an outreach of the Joni and Friends ministry, based in Agoura Hills, Calif.

The inmates take apart the wheelchairs and then clean, repair and reupholster them. On Thursday, volunteer Fred Landis, of Damar, delivered about 30 wheelchairs and 40 walkers to the prison, many donated by area nursing homes.

Inmates at Norton started repairing wheelchairs about a year ago, said Sgt. Joe Annon, the shop coordinator at the wheelchair and bicycle repair shop at the prison.

In many of the countries where the wheelchairs are headed, a wheelchair would cost a year’s wages, Annon said, and many people can only drag themselves along the ground.

“We like to say by providing wheelchairs to these people, we are restoring lives one person at a time,” Annon said.

The program uses medium-security prisoners, who ask for the assignment. The size of the crew has grown from eight to 21 in the past year and nearly 1,000 wheelchairs have come through the shop, he said.

On Friday, 200 chairs were shipped out, headed for Ghana.

In Ghana, parents who have a disabled child are told they should get rid of the child because of a belief that disability is punishment for sin, Annon said.

The prison also has about 400 bikes to give away, as part of the prison’s own Bikes for Youngsters program. The bikes go to families in need in nearby northwest Kansas and surrounding Nebraska towns.