Will you help us meet our goal to send 20,000 boxes of medical supplies during the month of June?
Your tax deductible donation made by June 30, 2013 will be matched dollar-for-dollar thanks to the
generosity of several wonderful MedShare supporters. Together, we can Double the Impact and Double the Healing by sending boxes of life-saving medical supplies to hospitals and clinics in need.
https://interland3.donorperfect.net/weblink/weblink.aspx?name=medshare&id=8
Please take a moment to view the photos below of this special celebration. We are so thrilled to work with AGS, and can’t wait to hear how their accomplishments are improving quality of healthcare and saving lives in Guatemala! Awesome job, girls!!
Special thanks to:
Peggy Hasty – Dean of Students, Atlanta Girls’ School
Cecil Conlee – The Conlee Family Foundation
Amy Conlee – The Conlee Family Foundation & mentor at AGS
Emily Ellison – AGS Co-founder
Bonnie O’Neill – Former MedShare board member & community volunteer
The end of National Volunteer Week was marked by a special event at MedShare West’s facility on the afternoon of Saturday, April 27. Our warehouse was transformed into Candy Land as we welcomed more than 80 guests. Everyone was treated to desserts from around the world including Guatemalan cookies and sweet breads, Caribbean sweet potato pie, African puf pufs, Filipino turon, Iranian ice cream, French-style macarons, and Middle Eastern treats like baklava. The festive spirit was enhanced by live Eastern European folk music provided by Paul Litsky (one of our dedicated volunteers) and his band. We even had a performance of Irish dancing by Jilian Kuehnel, 7 year old daughter of our own Shannon Kuehnel.
Presidential Service Awards were presented to honor our most dedicated volunteers. Fifty two volunteers earned the award this year; twice as many as received the award last year! Silver awards (for more than 250 hours of service) were presented to John Morton, Marsha Felton, Nassim Nouri, Susan Dyer, Joe Margevicius, and Fran Jurcso. Bronze awards (for more than 100 hours of service) were awarded to JoAnna Morton-Hansen, Camille Harris, Camille Didas, Virginia Godkin, Audrey Ewart, Barbara Gasparian, Judy Bulman, Gail Carter, Arleen Sakamoto, Nancy Jee, Marsha Nishikawa, John Dietz, Susie Plumb, Lynn Moreau, Sandra Montgomery, Joe Ely, Richard Linde, Eve Stone Trimble, Karen Nelson, Gloria Jancoski, Nancy Marcotte, Paul Litsky, Sue Naset, Dr. Phil Fischbacher, Nancy Menne, Alana Musante, Ted Almida, Rissa Coplan, Lya Ackermann, Grace Kemp, Carol Fullerton, Milton Huynh, Kathleen Biondi, Cathryn Jew, Myron Zhang, Jason Lee, Dr. Helen Vajk, Robert Charkowicz, Philip Rice, Mary Lou Groff, Dr. Karen Rice, Barbara Bonn and Richard Novotny. We had three youth Bronze award winners (i.e. age 14 years or younger with 50 hours of service) including Vivek Bharadwaj, Takari Fucles and Elijah Levy. These three, along with Milton Huynh, are MedShare’s first volunteers under age 18 to receive the Presidential Service Award. We have been blessed many times by the continuing commitment of all these award-winning volunteers!
Special thanks go to Peterson CAT, a local company that helped underwrite the party through their Peterson in the Community program; Nassim Nouri, who donated the Iranian ice cream; Chris Roberson of Frostine Bakery, who donated the macarons; and Paul Litsky and his band. We appreciate all their contributions toward honoring these very special people, our volunteers!
Earlier this week, I attended InterAction’s annual Forum in Washington, D.C. along with 1,000 other folks. Interaction was created in 1984 and is the largest coalition of U.S.-based international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) focused on the world’s poor and most vulnerable people. It has more than 185 member organizations working in every developing country. This organization has established standards that a member must meet and which require self-certification biennially. MedShare is proud to be a member of Interaction, and we work diligently to remain in compliance with their sector-wide standards.
During the Forum, there was a lot of valuable discussion around building local, in-country ownership and “resilience” (with a good bit of debate about whether or not we even agree on what resilience means and if it is a good or bad thing!) as well as the post-2015 Millennium Development Goals. These are very important discussions for MedShare to engage in as we continue work on the strategic plan that will guide our work over the next five years.
One specific topic of interest for me is around how we (the NGO sector) can “push” the Gift-in-Kind (GIK) model towards having greater impact. As Carol Wylie from MedShare-partner World Vision said during one session: “GIK in and of itself is irrelevant. It’s the systems around GIK that make an impact.”
I really do believe that she’s absolutely correct and yet, sadly – this is not a widely held view. Many very well-intentioned people continue to believe that just providing some stuff – any stuff – is helpful to those in developing countries. Of course, we have all heard the extreme, laugh-so-you-don’t cry examples of this type of GIK (which happens so often that it has its own acronym, SWEDOW….Stuff We Don’t Want). At the InterAction Forum, I heard the story of full cargo container of Red Bull, potato chips and expired pharmaceuticals arriving in Haiti post-earthquake….not exactly high value, high impact or even appropriate donations.
So – how does MedShare avoid this “irrelevance” trap? How do we match our outstanding ability to provide high-quality Gift-in-Kind (medical consumable supplies and equipment) with system-strengthening activities?
Well, we will certainly continue our rigorous adherence to a “push” vs. “pull” model so that our recipients order exactly what they need from our on-line inventory. But – how can we go even further? How can we better leverage our high-quality supply chain expertise to support other in-country health care strengthening efforts? Should we focus more on specific health challenges (such as hypertension or infection control)? Should we extend our great, but small biomedical engineering training and technical services program? Should we partner more closely with organizations that provide in-country nurse empowerment and training programs? These are topics of great discussion across the MedShare team and we welcome your creative ideas and input. We are proud of the impact we have had over the past 14 years… but we know we can do better on behalf of the doctors and nurses and patients we strive to support every day.
Let me know what you think. I’d love to hear from you!
In Service,
Meridith
