Mobility & Equipment Community Mobility & Equipment Restoration Program
For a lot of people living with a disability, the right piece of equipment is the difference between leaving the house and not. Between getting to an appointment, joining a friend for coffee, or making it to work. It shouldn't be a luxury — but for many people, the wait for funded replacements or repairs can stretch into months, sometimes years, and suitable equipment ends up out of reach.
At the same time, wheelchairs, walkers, and adaptive equipment are discarded every week — often needing nothing more than a tyre, a bearing, or an hour at a workbench.
HKSG collects donated equipment, restores it, and gets it back to people who need it.
What We Do
Volunteers at our community workshop repair and refurbish donated mobility and assistive equipment — wheelchairs, walkers, mobility aids, and adaptive daily-living items. Work includes tyre and tube replacement, bearing servicing, SmartDrive maintenance, cleaning, safety checks, and adjustments for fit and comfort.
Where equipment can be returned to safe working condition, it's matched with someone experiencing a gap — waiting on funding, between replacement cycles, or simply unable to cover the cost of repair.
Recipients are encouraged to get clinical fitting advice where that's needed. We do the mechanical and practical work; the clinical side stays with the professionals.
Case Study 1: Restoring Opportunity Through Community Repair
From scrap to international competition
In 2024, a $3,000 grant wasn't enough to buy a competition-grade wheelchair fencing chair. So we built one instead.
A discarded basketball wheelchair — written off as scrap — came into the workshop. Thirty-four hours of volunteer labour later, it had been fully rebuilt and converted to competition standard.
The athlete who needed it went on to compete internationally, in Thailand and Indonesia.
That's what this program does. Not every restoration ends on an international stage, but the same principle applies every time: equipment that would have gone to landfill goes back to someone's life instead.
After — competition fencing chair
The post-welding convertion process
Case Study 2: Restoring Independence Through the Right Equipment
From an 8.5kg chair to a 5.5kg solution
One client was using a wheelchair with an 8.5kg frame. While the chair met their mobility needs, they could not safely lift it into a vehicle without assistance, limiting their independence and ability to travel alone.
A new lightweight replacement chair was quoted at approximately $21,000 — well beyond the client's immediate means.
Instead, we sourced a quality second-hand wheelchair frame that was more than 12 years old but remained structurally sound. Weighing just 5.5kg, it could be safely lifted into a vehicle by the client without assistance.
Working from the client's Occupational Therapist specifications, the chair was fully refurbished, reconfigured and fitted to meet their individual needs.
The total project cost was approximately $1,850.
The outcome wasn't simply a lighter wheelchair. It was the return of something much more valuable: the ability to travel independently without relying on someone else to load and unload the chair.
That's what this program is about. Not everyone who needs equipment has a practical pathway to getting it. Some people are ineligible for funding, some are waiting, and others simply cannot afford the cost. When a safe and suitable solution can be created from equipment that already exists, we see value in putting it back to work. The result is often the same: greater independence, greater participation and one less barrier standing in someone's way.
Refurbished 5.5kg frame now
with an all up weight of 10kg
Original 8.5kg frame
with an all up weight of 13kg
More than repairs
The workshop is also just a good place to be.
People come to learn something, contribute a skill, solve a problem, or spend a few hours around others doing something useful. Volunteers include retired tradespeople, engineers, carers, makers, and people who simply want to help — no formal background required.
If you've got a Saturday morning and a useful skill, we'd be glad to have you at the bench.
Most workshop days end with coffee and conversation. That's not incidental — it's the point. Come for the repairs, stay for the rest of it.
Get in touch about volunteering:
How it works
Donate — unused or unwanted disability equipment is donated or collected. Assess — we check what's needed and whether restoration is practical. Restore — repairs, servicing, and modifications are completed by volunteers. Rehome — restored equipment goes to someone who needs it.
If you have equipment to donate, or know someone who does, get in touch.
Donate equipment
Get in touch:
Hornsby Ku-Ring-Gai Survivors Group Inc.
A registered Australian charity
ABN 54 883 981 332