FINDLEY TOWNSHIP, PA. State prison names access road

The prison's wheelchair refurbishing program also will be unveiled.
MERCER, Pa. -- The entrance road to the State Regional Correctional Facility in neighboring Findley Township has never had a name during the minimum security prison's first 25 years of operation.
On Thursday, it will officially become Walters Drive, named after Gilbert Walters, the facility's longtime superintendent.
Walters retired from the state Department of Corrections in January 2003 after 36 years of service, nearly 20 of them running the prison here.
The access road links the prison with Pa. Route 258.
Sate Sen. Bob Robbins of Greenville, R-50th, and Rep. Dick Stevenson of Grove City, R-8th, introduced the legislation necessary to name the road in Walters' honor.
'Wheels for the World'
The road dedication is set for 11 a.m. Thursday and will be followed by the first media viewing of the prison's "Wheels for the World" wheelchair recycling effort.
The prison has been working with the "Wheels for the World" nonprofit disability outreach organization of Joni & amp; Friends Area Ministry for more than a year.
Discarded wheelchairs from all over the United States are collected by Joni and Friends and delivered to the prison, where inmates restore them.
Inmates remove broken or unrepairable parts from the chairs and useable parts are be cleaned, repaired, catalogued and used in the restoration of other chairs.
The refurbished wheelchairs are then distributed to Third World countries by Joni and Friends.
The prison sent its first shipment of 169 refurbished wheelchairs, 70 walkers, five canes, 53 pairs of crutches and three wheeled walkers to Warsaw, Poland, one year ago.
The Web site for Joni & amp; Friends says that it is an international charitable foundation created by Joni Eareckson Tada to distribute wheelchairs to disabled individuals in developing countries.
Tada became a quadriplegic after a diving accident in 1967, according to the Web site.