The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints first participated in a wheelchair initiative in 2003 to provide people with disabilities with a wheelchair. Without a wheelchair those individuals must rely on their friends and families for transportation or resort to crawling.
The Church distributes wheelchairs through local agencies, including first-lady foundations.
In 2006, 54,840 wheelchairs were distributed in 54 countries: Albania, American Samoa, Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Barbados, Botswana, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cambodia, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Ethiopia, Fiji, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mexico, Micronesia, Moldova, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nepal, Nigeria, Palau, Palestine, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Romania, Russia, Samoa, Serbia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Suriname, Tanzania, Thailand, Trinidad, Turkey, Ukraine, Vietnam and Zimbabwe.