The packing of the suitcases was a success, from left: Iriish McNeil, Sandy Lemieux, Kristen Mahlis, Leeanne Kromer and Janice Walker.

WHAT A TREAT! It was like Christmas! Thank you SO much for collecting and delivering supplies that we desperately need!

Beth Milbourne and Kristin Mahlis

By Irish McNeil
Project SAVE Volunteer

When I became a volunteer for Project S.A.V.E, one of the things I was particularly looking forward to was being able to help the people of Haiti in some way. My heart sank a bit when I was informed that Project S.A.V.E., along with many other organizations, had great difficulty with past shipments because of the corruption in Haiti, so their involvement would be conditional.

I had been making donations to the JP/Haitian Relief fund since the earthquake, so I receive their mass e-mails regularly. Shortly after the cholera outbreak I received an e-mail asking for donations, volunteers and/or medical supplies. I forwarded the medical supply list to Janice Walker, program director of Project S.A.V.E and asked if we could help with any of these. She wasn’t particularly optimistic about getting many of the supplies but said she would make some phone calls and in the meantime for me and my S.A.V.E volunteer partner, Sandy Lemieux, to contact pediatricians offices’ to see if we could secure some supplies.

There was also the problem of paying for the shipment of these supplies. I was able to work out the shipping problem with a J/P volunteer in Florida. That was a good break for us.

Within two days, Janice called me with wonderful news that Harold Scott from Prices Pharmacy had ordered all but the IV fluids. Not only was this great news, but when the medical supplies came in he said he was making them a donation and would not charge us!

Within a few more days Sandy had also secured medical donations from the Enloe pharmacy and Janice was able to receive a rare donation of Ampicillin IV fluid.

While all these wonderful medical donations were coming in, another Enloe volunteer and friend, Ronnie Campbell, called to say she heard a wonderful speaker at a church that mentioned she was going to Haiti, and would I be interested in contacting her.

It took several days to get the contact information on the speaker, Kristen Mahlis. After speaking with Kristen, I asked if by chance she would be willing take a suitcase of medical supplies to Haiti for delivery to JP/HR. She said she would! All the pieces had come together.

Now Janice had baby clothes to add and friends who received word of this came forth with additional baby clothes, toys and baggies (for med. distribution) and latex gloves, also donated by Enloe central supply.

As the supplies grew we realized another suitcase was needed and Kristen enthusiastically agreed to take it. She is now very excited about delivering the suitcases and hopefully can take part in personally distributing some of the baby clothes and toys.

We received everything that was requested AND MORE!