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,