The First Congregational Church of Farmington has taken over Annie’s Beanpole, a medical equipment sharing and lending service.
Annie’s Beanpole rents out things like crutches and wheelchairs for people who fall between the cracks of the insurance industry — those who earn enough to have to make a copayment, but too little to afford specialized equipment.
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The service has been running since Feb. 1, lending out crutches and walkers, hospital bed rails, wheelchairs, wheelchair ramps, shower seats, grab bars, tub rails and glucometers. The service, housed at the Holman Parish House, has no fees or due dates. As long as residents sign a waiver, the equipment can be borrowed as long as needed.
“This feels like a perfect fit for our church,” says Sherry Jenckes, moderator of First Congregational. “Old South has a long history of outreach, and local mission is at the heart of our call to be the hands and feet of Christ.”
Annie’s Beanpole was created in 2004 by Betsy Judkins after her husband, Gearry, was injured in a car accident and her family fell into that insurance crack, according to a press release from the church.
Judkins named Annie’s Beanpole after her grandmother, who benefited from a similar community closet after she had a stroke, and for her husband, “whose dream of planting beans whose vines would crawl up his no-longer-needed crutches sustained him during his long recovery,” the release states.
More than 250 people from across Maine have used hundreds of pieces of medical equipment from the service operating out of Judkins’ basement, but by late last fall it had grown too large for the space and the church offered to take it over, according to the release.
About a dozen members gathered in late January to organize, clean, sanitize and inventory the equipment at the parish house, said Chris Magri, a member of the church’s Outreach, Justice and Witness committee.
Kaitlin Schroeder — 861-9252
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