The latest challenge was figuring out a way to get the donated equipment down the DR. As you may or may not know, the DR has a horrible postal service and getting oddly shaped and really heavy items on the plane is close to impossible. The best I have done is getting a wheelchair to the DR for Joel and that required me telling the airline staff that it was my wheelchair. One of Jack Larson's contacts (Exec. Dir. of Mission Emanuel in the US) works for MMI-www.mmint.org. This is a ministry that ships medical equipment to many different countries to help their missionaries provide better health care. They currently have our equipment in their warehouse. Here are some of the parts of this adventure:
In order to get this set-up correctly to weather more than a month long journey, it had to be loaded onto pallets and shrink wrapped. Thank you to all the people who donated and discounted items!! Thank you Callie and Garrett Griffin for letting us store over 1,000 pounds of equipment in your garage for o
ver a month :) We couldn't have made this happen without your help! Also, thank you to Tawny Cooper and her father, Jorge for helping us with shipping so that the price of shipping was MUCH less than what I could have found on my own. It cost a little less than $900 for the shipping.
For just one instance of God's humor and presence in this whole operation was that I was required to use paypal to pay for the shipping. For some reason, my paypal account would not let me use credit-I had to pay with an echeck. BUT this takes 3-5 days to process. So, thankfully, the shipping company was in FAYETTEVILLE!! My mom, in her typical fashion, drove the check right over 2 hours before the pick-up in Dallas and everything was on time! Thanks Mom :)
Brett DeVore, my boss from the clinic where I worked in Atlanta (Kiddos' Clubhouse), and his wife Nell graciously donated gym mats for the clinic. They will be used daily and add a ton of color to the now empty room. Thank you Nell and Brett!! Hopefully Brett will be joining me on my next trip!
The piece I am most excited about now is the LiteGait. It is a body-weight supported system that goes over a treadmill that allows us to help kids learn or re-learn to walk with much less effort from the therapist. These units usually cost about $4500. Thank you Kevin!!-who sold me one for only $800. The final item that will arrive next week is a treadmill to complete the system. Here is a picture of how it works:
Hopefully, the finalized gym will look something like this:
*Thank you to the following people/places that donated equipment, their time and resources for this most recent project:
Kevin
Jorge Guiloff-North American Trade Corp
Mike Walker-Case Stack, Inc.
Lisa Higgins and Family
Callie and Garrett Griffin
Nell and Brett Devore
Amanda Burnett-Medical City
Cara Smith-Texas Scottish Rite
Cari Copeland Dixon
Katie Peglow-Adaptivemall.com
Franck Vautrin
Anne Butt
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