A Pasco nonprofit that provides home health equipment such as beds and wheelchairs added 400 square feet of storage space in part to keep up with donations as area residents clean out storage units during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Premera Blue Cross donated $5,000 to the Knights Community Hospital Equipment Lend Program, or KC Help, for the project. KC Help has a warehouse and office at 324 W. Margaret St. near Pasco City Hall.

“During this last year, the community has donated a significant amount of gently used medical equipment as people have emptied their storage lockers and garages,” said Jerry Rhoads, president of KC Help.

Hank Ogryzek, vice president, led the volunteers who completed most of the work.

The second-floor addition includes a hoist to lift heavy equipment.

West Richland-based Metalfab and Pacific Steel of Kennewick donated their services to complete the project, which included installing a trolley beam.

KC Help loans medical equipment to people who cannot afford them or whose insurance or Medicare won’t cover doctor-prescribed equipment.

KC Help spun out of the Tri-Cities Chaplaincy House in the mid-1990s after beginning as a group of volunteers who refitted homes to accommodate ill residents and their medical gear. It branched into providing durable medical equipment when leaders realized there were people who needed equipment they couldn’t get through insurance or Medicare.