It would be impossible for George Donahue to keep count.

“We were down to one bed and then all of a sudden we have 14,” he says surveying the lot and open garage at the Robert J. Allen Masonic Medical Distribution Center on Long Street at the Masonic Youth Park across from Sts. Rose and Catherine Church in Warwick. The center, open from 9 a.m. to noon every Friday, is the only one of its kind in the Ocean State where people can drop off as well as pick up used or even new medical equipment, from canes to wheelchairs and, yes, beds with no questions asked and at no cost.

Robert Allen, former Grand Master of the State Grand Lodge, founded the program in 2002. The concept was to take in donations of used equipment, repair them if needed and make them available at no cost. He learned quickly that insurance did not cover all medical equipment and used equipment was in high demand.

“We thought it was the right thing to do,” Allen said in an Aug. 5, 2021 Warwick Beacon interview. “A lot of people couldn’t afford it, and they should live with dignity,”

Now 90 years old, Allen still frequents the Friday collection and distribution events, even though he wasn’t present last Friday. The Grand Lodge is carrying forward Allen’s dream with an active group of seven or eight Masons taking in and sorting donations and then helping those looking for the equipment they need.

It’s hard to identify any one piece of equipment as being in consistent demand. One week there will be a selection of more than a dozen canes displayed on the interior wall of the garage and the next  there will be only a couple. At the moment there appears to be a rush on shower seats and benches.

A few limits

Initially the center welcomed motorized wheel chairs and stair lifts, but found after making minor repairs they would be returned for being non-functional. They no longer accept them.

“We don’t have the people with the knowledge. Somethings are best left to the professionals,” Donahue said.

Donahue’s involvement with the center evolved over time. When friends and neighbors learned he is a Mason they would drop off equipment at his home to bring to the center. Soon he realized he might as well have people visit him at the center. In 2016 Allen asked Donahue if he could fill in for him while he underwent a knee replacement, a role Donahue has filled ever since.

A retired licensed electrician, Donahue, now approaching his 80’s, is affable, seemingly unflappable and anxious to be of help. He welcomes the attention a news story will mean in increased donations of equipment and people the center will serve. He loves how the center is there to serve everyone with no questions asked or payment required.

“You want it, you got it.”

“It’s available to anyone and everyone,” he said. “You want it and you’ve got it,” he said.

“Sometimes people slip us a ten or twenty for coffee. We don’t do that,” he said. If people are serious about making donations, he asks that they be directed to the Masonic Grand Lodge based in East Providence.

“It’s a low key type of operation,” Donahue says when asked if records of what comes in and goes out the door are kept. The answer is no. There are no records either of those making donations or “borrowing” equipment. Donahue looks at transactions as more of “loans” since, as he has seen, some people return the equipment within a couple of weeks since the person for whom it was needed has passed.

“A loved has one passed away and they need to get rid of it right away,” he says. Others, he points out, wait for months and years before returning items to the center.

Donohue lists beds, which cost between $900 and $1,500 as being among the higher valued equipment at the center. The exception is ramps for getting wheelchairs in and out of houses, which can cost $10,000 and more. He notes the ramps often require special installation that is not included.

The center does not provide for pickups or deliveries, but there is plenty of help from those working the center who are easily identifiable in their Grand Lodge shirts and caps. They’re not only familiar with medical equipment, but know where to find it. They’re also there to help load it to be taken to its new home.

On occasion, however, they have drawn a line. Donahue recalls a couple who arrived in a shiny new sedan with the intention of strapping a bed on the roof. Donahue talked them out of attempting it as it would have left the car scratched. They returned with a truck.

And how long might Donahue stay in his role as center director? He’s doesn’t know.

“The guy who started it believes in it whole heartedly,” he says of Bob Allen, “I wouldn’t want to disappoint him.”

What he admires about Allen is that “it’s not simply a matter of believing in it, but doing it.”

The two and their followers keep the center operating every Friday of the year (the exceptions being Christmas and New Years Day).

For questions about accessing the center or providing a donation, those interested may contact the center at (401) 435-4650 for office or (401) 451-0184 for cell, as well as grandlodge@rimasons.org.