IN THE NEWS, part 2

Thanks to the reader who caught this article in which we are mentioned as well.

Great quote from the Times Picayune:

"Empathy is one thing. Taking the step to actually help someone else in need is the true spirit of the season."

IN THE NEWS

Times Picayune, New Orleans, 12-17-10

Times Picayune, New Orleans, 1-14-11

Thanks to the Times Picayune in New Orleans, TRTP has made it into the newspaper twice over the past month. (Just click on either of the articles to enlarge.)

St. Vincent's, February 2011, press release

The following article has been released to the press in the New Orleans area and will also be found on St. Paul's website in the next few days. We have high hopes that it will also be found on both the Diocese of Louisiana and Olympia's websites.

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This February, Kathy Korge Albergate, wife of the Rev. Dr. Scott P. Albergate*, will lead a team of volunteers to St. Vincent’s Center for Handicapped Children School and Clinic in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The children lost their church, school, dormitory and medical facilities on January 12, 2010 when a 7.0 earthquake devastated their home at St. Vincent’s.

Kathy is president of The Red Thread Promise, a non-profit organization that brings critical medical care to orphaned and needy children. St. Paul’s Episcopal Church – Lakeview and Dioceses of Louisiana and Olympia (WA) have partnered with The Red Thread Promise to help rebuild St. Vincent’s and support the center’s exceptional students.

The team, composed of doctors, interior architects, photographers and volunteers, will be visiting the center to work with more than 200 children with disabilities. With the main goal of assessing the short- and long-term needs of the students and how the partnership can best fill those needs, the team will be:

• working with Fr. Sadoni Leon, St. Vincent’s director, to understand details of the center’s scheduling of medical, volunteer and building teams, inventory systems (for medical equipment and day-to-day pharmaceutical supplies) and other critical information to ensure coordinated care for patients
• meeting with on-site doctor(s) to determine how future medical teams, including orthopedists, audiologists, ophthalmologists, optometrists, dentists and other specialists can be of service to the children
• getting to know the children personally as well as their individual physical challenges, with special emphasis on those attending the school for the blind in order to jump-start its rebuilding efforts
• bringing various supplies as requested by the director
• determining translation needs for the medical records currently available
• discussing options for the donation of an autoclave (medical instrument sanitizer)
• developing a plan ensuring an ongoing supply of pharmaceutical supplies and medicines
• possibly holding clinic hours for check-ups and vitamin supplements for the children
• hopefully be delivering a cargo container (already in port) full of wheelchairs and other supplies (as of the writing of this article, the container has not yet been released from port)

If you would like to make a tax-deductible contribution toward this trip or would like to donate supplies that will be hand-carried to St. Vincent’s, please contact Kathy through The Red Thread Promise email (Kathy@redthreadpromise.org) or phone 817-320-6522.

For additional information about St. Vincent’ or the upcoming trip, please visit redthreadpromise.org or follow the group’s progress on their FaceBook page. They will be posting daily during their time in Haiti.

*The Rev. Dr. Scott P. Albergate is rector of St. Paul's Episcopal Church-Lakeview, New Orleans, LA,

Is there a doctor in the house?

If you follow us on FaceBook, you know that our travel dates for our first trip to Haiti in 2011 are February 7 - 14.

But we are missing one important person for this trip.

And it might be you!

We are looking for a doctor (ER, general practice or pediatrician) to accompany us for our first visit to St. Vincent's Center for Handicapped Children. All students at St. Vincent's have physical handicaps of some sort. The majority are hearing impaired, sight impaired and physically disabled, needing wheelchairs, canes, crutches and prosthetics. Their ages range from 5 - 16.

We feel that a doctor would bring a valuable comprehensive medical perspective to the table. We have specialists waiting in the wings for future trips, but at this time, we need someone with a broad scope of knowledge to help us access St. Vincent's so that we can plan accordingly for future mission trips.

The trip is scheduled for February 7 - 14th. We will visit St. Vincent's, Rivers of Hope orphanage and other areas around Port-au-Prince. Tentatively, we are planning to be onsite at St. Vincent's from February 9th - 11th.

Specifically, this trip would entail onsite research into the following areas:

• how does St. Vincent's provide medical services for their students?
• what are their facilities like in terms of clinical areas / equipment / supplies available?
• what would we need to bring along: staff, supplies, medication, etc?
• what types of doctors are most needed at this time?

Here are some links to our blog posts that discuss St. Vincent's past, present and future:

• History of St. Vincent's
• St. Vincent's before the earthquake
• St. Vincent's after the quake
• The initial plan to rebuild

If time allows, we would also like to hold an informal clinic for the children, doing basic well-checkups. It is our understanding that the children's medical records survived. We plan to photograph the entire facility and do a loose inventory of the clinic(s) and supplies. This information will be critical as we organize future trips to work in St. Vincent's clinic and school.

We have a beautiful, safe place to stay in Haiti with wifi and phone service. It is dormitory style with a shared bathroom and includes 2 meals per day. We will travel together on the ground via taxi with a Haitian guide. The approximate cost for the entire week is $1500 (including airfare), but of course this depends on your city of origin. Travelers may stay the entire week or part. All volunteers are responsible for their own expenses.

If you, or someone you know, would like to join us for the trip or would like more information, please contact Kathy at kathy@redthreadpromise.org or call 817.320.6522.

We promise that it will be a life-changing experience to work with these exceptional children!