In 1976, Dr. Augusto Ortiz and his wife Martha looked to a donated school bus as a means to achieve their dream of providing free medical care to the poor of Tucson, Ariz.
Today, The University of Arizona Mobile Health Program (MHP) visits communities in a big, shiny trailer stocked with all the amenities of a regular health clinic — including an EKG — but the spirit behind it remains the same 40 years later.
The MHP makes regular rounds of communities in southern Arizona, serving about 2,400 uninsured and under-insured people, plus those that don’t have regular access to health facilities. Additionally, since 2003, the MHP has run group prenatal care appointments for expectant mothers, serving many who would never have received the important care otherwise and resulting in the delivery of more than 200 healthy babies.
Still, for all the poor that have been helped by the MHP, the impact on doctors-in-training may even be greater. The clinic is staffed with medical residents and students in public health, pre-med and pre-dental programs at the University of Arizona. Tammie Bassford, head of the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University, tells Linda Valdez of AZ Central, “It has a profound impact on students.”
Bassford recalls one time when MHP staffers asked a patient if she needed any help with anything besides her health. She told them that she lacked a pot big enough to cook beans for everyone in her family. The MHP was happy to provide her with one.
Dr. Ortiz died at age 90 in 2007, but his wife Martha, now 90, is still involved in fundraising for the mobile health clinic that they founded. She believes in helping the poor for purposes of altruism, but also for the practical reason of preventing the spread of disease. “If somebody is standing next to you in the grocery line and coughing, it’s possible they have tuberculosis, and don’t know because they can’t get to a doctor,” she tells Valdez.
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Tag: the American West
There’s So Much More to Burning Man Than Sex, Drugs and Debauchery
Every year, thousands of people gather in the scorching sun and blowing sand of Black Rock Desert for Burning Man, a weeklong festival in the middle of nowhere Nevada that celebrates art, music and culture and culminates in a massive bonfire. The event, known for its free-spirit nature and hedonism, is becoming immensely popular with the tech community, thanks to its focus on innovation and creativity — Google’s Sergey Brin and Larry Page have attended, as have Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos.
When you gather all types of people from across the world and take them off the grid (the event lacks cell phone service and relies on generators for power), brainstorming is bound to happen. The outcome? These three organizations that got their start in the Nevada desert have been burning brightly ever since.
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How A Bike and Some Books Are Helping the Homeless
Back in 2011, Portland, Oregon’s Laura Moulton won a grant to fund a book bicycle that would serve as a mobile lending library to the city’s homeless population. From it, Street Books, a tricycle carting a chest full of books to lend, was born.
Unfortunately, the grant money only lasted for three months, but Moulton knew she couldn’t quit.
“At the end of that first summer I arrived late for one of the last shifts and Keith, a regular patron, was waiting for me with his book,” she tells Rebecca Koffman of The Oregonian. “I realized this wasn’t a service that could be suspended because an art project had come to an end.”
So Moulton founded a nonprofit to keep Street Books pedaling — purchasing books and funding three librarians who cover three-hour shifts, three days a week at locations accessible to many homeless people.
Street Books doesn’t fuss if a book isn’t returned (though most are). “We decided to operate the library on the assumption that people living outside have more pressing concerns than returning a library book, and that every time a return came in, it would be cause for celebration,” Moulton writes on the nonprofit’s website.
Moulton says that the book bike attracts all kinds of people, and that it’s often the catalyst for someone to start a conversation with a homeless person instead of avoiding eye contact. When people approach to find out about what Street Books is, “one of our patrons will be there,” she says, “ready to set down his or her backpack and talk about books. It’s an opportunity for people to step out of their prescribed roles.”
Diana Rempe, one of the librarians, tells Koffman, “There are so many really obvious assumed differences, assumptions that because you don’t have a roof over your head and some basic needs are not met, doesn’t mean that you aren’t interested in ideas, the life of the mind, the joy of reading. That’s right up there with nourishment of other sorts.”
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One of Street Books’ regular customers is Ben Hodgson, a formerly homeless veteran who now lives in Section 8 housing. While he was on the streets, the literature Street Books provided brought him comfort, and now he works on Fridays as the inventory specialist, helping the librarians sort books. “Street Books didn’t get me the heck off the streets; no-one can do that for you,” Hodgson says. “But it was, what do they call them? Street Books was one of those tender mercies.”
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For Those Most in Need of Low Utility Bills, There’s Free Solar Energy
Normally, the families that can afford solar panels are the ones who are least in need of the energy savings that accompany the green technology. But now, a new program in Denver is giving some low-income households free access to solar energy.
The charter elementary school Academy 360 (80 percent of its students qualify for free or reduced lunch) in Denver’s Montbello neighborhood focuses on health and wellness in its curriculum and provides wholesome breakfasts and lunches to all its students and encourages plenty of exercise. And now, the new solar program, which was announced by Denver Mayor Michael Hancock last month, should bring more overall wellness (not to mention budget savings) to the families of each of the 125 students enrolled in the school.
Last year, Colorado became the first state to give people the option of accessing solar energy by subscribing to a solar garden connected to their houses via an energy grid, rather than purchasing and installing their own solar panels. This type of thing isn’t legal in every state, but four years ago Colorado legislators passed the Community Solar Act, allowing for partnerships between solar and electrical companies.
The first two solar gardens were located in Colorado Springs, and now a company called SunShare is bringing this option to Denver. The first subscribers will receive six-tenths of a kilowatt of solar energy and should see their home energy bills reduced by twenty percent, according to Anthony Cotton of the Denver Post.
“When I was your age, I used to see these magical solar panels on houses, and I wondered what they did,” Mayor Hancock said as he spoke to the Academy 360 community. “They were very expensive to have then, and they still are. But because of this project, we’ll all be able to share in affordable energy.”
SunShare CEO David Amster-Olszewski tells the Post that he thinks the program will bring a variety of benefits for the Academy 360 families: “It means they’ll be able to put healthier foods on the table or buy more sports equipment for their kids’ health.”
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Through This Simple Household Task, Volunteers Show Their Love for the Low-Income and Homeless
If you’re lucky enough to have someone else washing your clothes for you, chances are that person loves you. (And it’s probably your mom, dad or spouse doing the dirty work.)
A volunteer mission called Laundry Love, however, spreads the affection beyond the immediate family to help the needy get the clean clothes that otherwise might be hard to come by.
According to the nonprofit’s website, Laundry Love began about 12 years ago when members of a church in Ventura, Calif., wanted to know what they could do to help a homeless man known as T-Bone. He said, “If I had clean clothes I think people would treat me like a human being.”
Since then, many other churches and volunteer groups have joined the effort, renting out a number of Laundromats across the country for a night to wash the clothes of homeless and low-income people, while also getting to know them and trying to help them in other ways.
Krysta Fauria of the Associated Press spoke to Victoria Mitchell, who began coming to Laundry Love gatherings in Huntington Beach when she was living in her car with her baby daughter. The volunteers took up a collection to help her rent an apartment. Now Mitchell has a steady job, too.
“You’re not just checking a box to give a donation. You’re spending the whole evening with these people and getting your hands dirty and it’s intimate — you’re doing people’s laundry,” Mitchell’s friend and Laundry Love volunteer LuzAnna Figueroa tells Fauria.
Some of the volunteers were once down on their luck, too. Christian Kassoff, founder of the Huntington Beach Laundry Love chapter, was once addicted to heroin and living out of his car. Now he leads an enthusiastic group of volunteers helping others. “I’m not wealthy, but I have the gift of time and a heart for it, so this fits,” Kassoff tells Fauria.
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How Digging in the Dirt Improves the Health of Immigrants in America
As anyone who’s traveled to a foreign country can attest, food can vary greatly from land to land.
So it shouldn’t come as any surprise that when some immigrants move to America, their health declines because they don’t have access to the fresh produce that enriched their diets in their native country.
In rural western Colorado, a unique program is solving this problem by helping immigrants learn English while they grow healthy food for their families — and it’s giving the farmer who hosts them some new notions about what crops to grow, too.
In the town of Delta, immigrants from countries including Mexico and Myanmar who sign up for ESL classes learn about a program at the Thistle Whistle Farm, located near Hotchkiss, Colo., about 45 minutes away. The immigrants help out at the farm and in doing so, get tips on how to cultivate and grow their own food. Plus, they can practice their English writing skills while taking notes on gardening techniques.
Their ESL and farming teacher, Chrys Bailey, tells Laura Palmisano of KVNF, “A lot of what has brought them to the program is that they are noticing that their families and themselves are beginning to suffer from health issues that they had not suffered from before and they are making the connection that some of their food choices are not serving them.”
Some students bring their children to Thistle Whistle to help out, filling idle summer hours with a productive and fun activity. “My kids enjoy coming to the farm and they like it because they learn about plants and how to grow some vegetables,” Yadira Rivera tells Palmisano.
The participants then take their new found gardening skills back home, planting their own vegetables, even if the only space they have is a couple of pots.
The program, which has run for three years through a grant from the Colorado Health Foundation, needs funding to continue.
Meanwhile, Mark Waltermire, the owner of Thistle Whistle Farm, has benefitted from the program too. “They’ve suggested or requested I grow a lot of vegetables and herbs I haven’t heard or tried before and I’ve been introduced to all sorts of fun, new varieties and fun new vegetables that I would otherwise not have been exposed to. So it has changed my diet too. I eat all sorts of things that I previously never knew about.”
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For Homeless Veterans, Gardening Can Be the Therapy That Gets Them Back on Their Feet
It’s commonly known that gardening can be good for the soul, but for a group of veterans trying to leave homelessness forever, it can be a complete lifesaver.
Which is exactly why early last Wednesday, Coralei Kluver, an assistant manager at Home Depot was hard at work shoveling dirt to help build a greenhouse that will benefit a group of veterans living at Independence Hall, a 20-bed transitional housing center in Billings, Mont.
Home Depot provided a $10,000 grant for the greenhouse project, and the store’s employees brought the volunteer muscle. Many of them came to help in the morning before working a full shift at the store. “It’ll be a long day, but it’s worth it,” Kluver tells Zach Benoit of the Billings Gazette. “It’s good to be here and we’re glad to be helping.”
Kluver has a special motivation to help veterans: Several years ago, her cousin was killed while on active duty.
Since 2011, the veterans at Independence Hall have run a thriving garden, but the greenhouse will help extend the growing season in the chilly Rocky Mountain climate. Some of the produce grown is used as food for the vets at Independence Hall, while the remainder is sold at the farmer’s markets held in the center’s parking lot or donated to the community. One year, more than 800 pounds worth was dolled out.
Bill Holder, the director of veterans services for the local chapter of Volunteers of America (VOA), the nonprofit that runs Independence Hall, tells Benoit, “We’ve already got our community garden here, so hopefully we’ll be able to start earlier and grow more.” Holder says Independence Hall is “not a shelter. It’s a program where they transition to a self-sufficient lifestyle.”
Gardening “gives the opportunity to have something that’s therapeutic,” says Dave Shumway, the director of communications for the Northern Rockies division of the VOA. “They’re transitioning from being homeless to a more normal life and what’s more normal than working on a garden in your backyard?”
MORE: Meet the Marine Who Planted A Special Garden for His Fellow Vets
Instead of Letting Veterans Struggle Post Service, GM Trains Them for Dealership Employment
Many Army veterans know a thing or to about maintaining vehicles. And if they can keep a tank running smoothly, fixing a car should be a piece of cake, right?
That’s what General Motors and Raytheon think, which is why the two companies are teaming up with the U.S. Army to offer veterans jobs in car dealerships. According to David Shepardson of The Detroit News, GM has more car lots than any other auto maker in the U.S. — 4,300 of them, to be exact — and the company estimates it’ll need 2,500 technicians to staff them in the coming years. And with the Army planning to reduce its size from 574,000 to 450,000, there will be thousands of veterans looking for good jobs.
So kicking off this month at Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas, is the 12-week-long Shifting Gears: Automotive Technician Training Program. In order for Army members to obtain the skills needed to gain a civilian job before they’re discharged, the Raytheon-developed program is held on the base. GM pays for the training and connect graduates from it to jobs in their dealerships across the country.
Lynn Dugle, president of Raytheon Intelligence, Information and Services, says, “Young Army veterans face unemployment rates that are more than double the national average. Raytheon sees this partnership with GM and the Army as an opportunity to reduce those alarming statistics by helping position former service members for new opportunities.”
U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Howard Bromberg, deputy chief of staff for personnel, said at the Pentagon event, “Soldiers transitioning to civilian life bring exceptional training, values and experience to American communities and their civilian workforce. Properly supporting our veterans requires a team approach from the Army, other government agencies and the local community.”
Along with GM and Raytheon, more and more companies, including Tesla and Microsoft, are stepping up to help veterans transition into civilian jobs. Here’s to hoping that this assistance continue to trend.
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The Innovative Blood-Drawing Technique That’s Pain-Free and Saves Money
Most 19 year olds spend their days hanging out with friends, not revolutionizing American healthcare. But that’s not the case with Elizabeth Holmes who dropped out of Stanford to start the company, Theranos.
During her freshman year in college, Holmes took chemical engineering professor Channing Robertson’s seminar on advanced drug-delivery devices (aka, things like patches and pills). After completing a summer internship at the Genome Institute in Singapore, she hit upon her first idea: a patch that simultaneously delivered medication and collected data about the patient to inform their doctors with.
Holmes dropped out of school to work on a patent for that product and to launch her company using the rest of her college savings.
That invention was the first of many that the now 30-year-old CEO would develop. According to Fortune, Holmes is listed as a co-inventor on 82 U.S. and 189 foreign patent applications. Eighteen in the U.S. have been granted.
When Holmes first told Robertson about her plan to drop out, Robertson told Fortune, “I said, ‘Why do you want to do this?’ And she said, ‘Because systems like this could completely revolutionize how effective health care is delivered. And this is what I want to do. I don’t want to make an incremental change in some technology in my life. I want to create a whole new technology, and one that is aimed at helping humanity at all levels regardless of geography or ethnicity or age or gender.'”
As Holmes set to work on her company, she shifted from her initial idea to one about developing a revolutionary way to run diagnostic tests on very small amounts of blood — just a drop — instead of the full vials most labs need.
She came up with a technique that not only minimizes the discomfort, but also enables doctors to run dozens of tests on just one sample — and it delivers the results efficiently and inexpensively. They’re so affordable, in fact, that no test costs more than half of the allowed Medicare reimbursement for it. Fortune writer Roger Parloff says, “with widespread adoption [this] could save the nation billions.”
And that’s just part of Holmes’s next plan for Theranos. The company is partnering with Walgreens, whose stores currently host 21 patented Theranos blood-drawing facilities. They’re all in Phoenix and Palo Alto for now, but the drug-store chain plans to gradually add them nationwide. Holmes’s eventual goal? For just about every American to have a Theranos facility within five miles.
In addition to the cost savings and the minimized discomfort, Holmes’ technique allows for more frequent blood draws in people with conditions that require it, so that doctors can better monitor the fluctuations in their health.
Holmes said, “Anywhere from 40 percent to 60 percent of people, when they’re given a requisition by a doctor to go get tested, don’t, because they’re scared of needles or the locations are inconvenient or the cost is too high. And if you’re not even getting tested, how is it possible that we’re going to move toward an era of preventive medicine?”
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Setting Politics Aside, Americans Are Stepping Up to Help Migrant Kids
A new Gallup Poll finds that the issue of immigration has become the number one national concern of Americans. And while there’s no legislative solution in sight to cope with the massive influx of refugee children fleeing Central American gang violence and arriving in the states that border Mexico, individuals across the country are putting partisan issues aside in the face of this humanitarian crisis, coming up with ways to help.
In San Francisco, 17-year-old high school student Julia Tognotti has been working tirelessly to collect clothing for the detained children ever since she saw a documentary on the crisis in her Spanish class last May. After school recessed for summer vacation, she traveled to Nogales, Texas, and volunteered in a shelter for the migrant kids.
“I talked to a boy there on the first day named Brian. He was 17 and I’m 17 and he was from Honduras and it took him two months to get to Mexico and he took seven trains. And I was so surprised to hear this because it really made me think, ‘could I do this?'” she told Sergio Quintana of ABC 7 News San Francisco.
Tognotti has collected two loads of clothes to send to Nogales and is planning to continue her work, accepting donations in Brisbane, California. She also hopes to organize a trip to the border for more teenagers to learn about the issue. Julia’s father David Tognotti told Quintana that the family doesn’t want to get “tangled up in the politics of the issue,” they just want to help the kids.
“We have a 17-year-old that’s trying to do what she believes is right to help people and it would be great if we could help support her.”
Meanwhile, the Hispanic Heritage Foundation (HHF), a Washington, D.C.-based national organization promoting Latino leadership, organized a trip for concerned people to volunteer at a refugee shelter run by Sacred Heart Church in McAllen, Texas. Actress America Ferrara, best known as the title character in “Ugly Betty,” joined the mission, reading books to the kids. HHF has also donated clothes, toys, books, and tablet computers.
In New York, La Casa Azul Bookstore is coordinating a book drive to supply migrant kids who arrive at shelters in the New York City area with free reading material. They’re looking for new and gently-used books in Spanish for kids and are offering a 10 percent discount to anyone who buys such books at their store. La Casa Azul will collect the books through August 10 and personally deliver them to children and teenagers in need.
As the actions of these caring Americans demonstrate, we don’t have to wait for government action before we reach out to help another human being.
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