December
2004
Don Crane, CEO of
Littleton Adventist Hospital, his family, and co-workers arrived with plenty
of energy and sleeves rolled up ready to mix cement, push wheel barrows, and
do anything to get the new physical therapy building up. Sarah, a volunteer,
had raised 50% of the building cost and the Colorado group were there to
cover labor. In two weeks, the walls went up and the group was drawn by the
services and needs of the hospital. Before they left, they agreed to
develop a sister-hospital relationship between Littleton Adventist Hospital
and Scheer Memorial Hospital. They began with a pledge of $1000 to support
the marathon that Scheer was organizing. Several other projects were
discussed. Scheer is looking forward to a wonderful relationship with
Littleton.
November
2004
Story
1: This
was Ron Marcus’ 30th trip to Nepal. Each visit to Nepal is a
“working” vacation for Ron. This month, he coordinated two teams to help
Scheer with the ceiling and the electrical work of the Nursing
Administrative building. Not only did they do all the work, but they also
paid for all the material. But more impressive is the team’s keen perception
of the needs at Scheer. Last year, they noticed the maintenance department
struggling to make do with a broken gasket, pestoon and ring of an
ambulance. That evening, a hat was passed around the team and they collected
enough to buy a new part. This year, they noticed that the are around the
maintenance and the parking. Last year they saw a need for a car part,
passed around the hat and took up a collection. This year they saw a need
for a paved area around the maintenance shop and collected $1000 to get it
done.
Story 2: Jim and Jane Lanning
arrived with two frozen turkeys in their carry-on luggage. They were here to
spend Thanksgiving with their daughter Lou who was volunteering as a Nursery
Class teacher. What a Thanksgiving we had—There were 46 volunteers and
workers representing Australia, Philippines, Brazil, Sri Lanka, Switzerland,
Canada. Americans were the minority—but it was still “Thanksgiving”—Where
would Scheer be without its volunteers!
September
2004
His name makes a great
first impression: “Steve Cool.” But an even greater impression he made on Scheer was the energy and enthusiasm he put into acquiring much needed
medical equipment and supplies for Scheer. His work got the attention of his
town newspaper too! (website link to the article in the newspaper). He then
recruited a team to come to Scheer, assembly all the equipment and set it
up.
The group was a dynamic one that got involved in many areas of the
hospital--donating towards Scher's palliative care, paying for spare parts,
sponsoring the education of a girl whose mother died of cancer, “compelling”
friends back in the U S to go “find” things we needed.
Read more in Medford's
Mail Tribune.
August
2004
Early 2005 I got an
email from a stranger offering me a thousand dollars. It had all the
markings of a scam, junk email. But something about the tone of the letter
rang sincere and something inside of me said RESPOND. So I did. And we
became acquainted over emails. Adam Roberts said he had started The Ten
Dollar Club where members donated $10 each month. The month was then pooled
together to help a project in a different country each year. Adam found
Scheer in a google search and contacted me. It was summer time and we were
back in the US visiting family. Adam just happened to live a few miles from
my parents so we decided to meet and talk about various hospital projects. A
bit wary of this new friend I had made on the Internet, I took Roy, my
husband and CEO of Scheer, along with me.
What a delightful time
we had! Adam’s passion for philanthropy was so apparent and his genuiness
put me at ease. A few weeks later we got a check in the mail for over
US$1000 dollars towards an air compression system to operate ventilators in
the ICE.
Join
The Ten Dollar Club today and make a difference.
July 2004
Palliative Care is a
fairly new concept in Nepal. Until Scheer Memorial Hospital began this unit
is 2004, there was only Hospice Nepal that provided 10 beds for a population
of 25 million people. The primary reasons for this disparity between
population and palliative care services are two: 1) Practicality that comes
with poverty: When a family of 6 has one with a terminal illness, they
generally don’t see the purpose of spending money or even time with the
individual when both time and money are resources that could be better used
for the other family members. 2) Fatalistic attitude: The culture and
religion are strongly rooted in fate. The terminal illness of someone is
viewed as something that was inevitable and meant to be. When a family
faces with the death of someone, they generally see no reason to
focus on the quality of life because the event and everything about it is
out of their control.
However progress is
being made gradually. Scheer educates its community in palliative care from
a good works-oriented perspective that is also an integral part of the
people’s religion and culture. We encourage people to be a part of this
program for three reasons: 1) It feels good to do good; 2) You help someone
when you do good; 3) One day you may need help as well.
March 2004
David and Melissa
arrived, full of energy,
an attitude of service, and a
goal to do as much as possible in a very short time.
Their trip to Nepal gained world-wide attention in the
Adventist Review. Read the story on page 18 on the attached
PDF file.
February 2004
About a year ago, we
were getting a bit antsy. Felt like we should be doing more. The hospital’s
good name and affordable care is known among the poor and many government
offices. That’s good…but there is a growing population of middle class that
has not heard of us. The hospital has been here 45 years. Felt like it was
time to do something BIG. Something creative, something unique that gets
everyone’s attention.
Then while having dinner
at Rick’s (Dr. Richard Rentfro, CMO and Orthopedic Surgeon at Scheer), Roy
noticed 30 some medals hanging in a corner. Rick said they were his marathon
medals. And Roy responded Scheer should organize an
international marathon to raise funds for charity healthcare in Nepal.
While
researching marathons on the web, Roy found the name Al Boka listed
as treasurer of AIMS (Association of International Marathon Runners and Road
Racers) and who lives in Las Vegas. We decided to contact him while we were
n the West Coast that summer.
Many
hours of driving with jetlag got us into Las Vegas one hour before the
meeting. Roy met Al at a Starbucks. They hit it off. Al gave a lot of
pointers and put us in touch with Hugh Jones, Treasurer of AIMS and one of
only a handful of people in the certified to measure a marathon course.
And this month both Al
and Hugh came to Nepal on their own time to chart the course for Nepal’s
first international marathon which will be held a year from now.
