Landmark Education graduate Cecibel Terezakis has founded a new non-profit organization, Wheels of Power, whose purpose is to provide wheelchairs, crutches and other orthopedic devices to those in need in her native land of Ecuador. Terezakis now lives in Mineola, New York, and it was an experience of her son Nicholas that came while they were visiting a beautiful town near Guayaquil in Ecuador that provided her with the inspiration for Wheels of Power. Walking in the streets one day, Nicholas noted a boy, about his own age, who had no legs. To move, the boy was using his arms to literally drag himself down the street.

Nicholas went to his mother and insisted that they do something for him. Terezakis looked into the situation and discovered that there were many children like this one who were born with birth defects and could not walk, and lived in poverty too extreme to afford something like a wheelchair. Cecibel, who was in the Self-Expression and Leadership program at the time, decided to take the problem on and Wheels of Power was founded.

The immediate goal of the organization is to fill a shipping container with wheelchairs and other needed devices to go to Ecuador in May of this year. Terezakis put the word out to the Hispanic community of Long Island (New York) to ask for donations of money or equipment, and the community has already begun to respond–She just received a donation of 10 wheelchairs and money is starting to come in. She is moved and excited by the response of the community and she is looking forward to making the first shipment of badly needed supplies. To get involved, go to the Wheels of Power website. To read more in Spanish, check out this article in La Tribuna Hispana, the largest Hispanic weekly in the tri-state area.