"MedShare’s Western Region opened in 2008 and since then we have shipped over 140 containers of life-changing medical aid to hospitals in the developing world. Additionally, we have provisioned hundreds of medical teams as well as safety-net clinics throughout California. We have established partnerships with the leading hospitals in Northern CA and prevented hundreds of tons of medical supplies from going to area landfills. Here, you will find information on our facility location, how to support our mission (you can volunteer or donate), news on recent and upcoming projects and events, hospital partners, and our staff. Thank you for all that you do to support MedShare's mission."
-Mary Bersot, MedShare Western Regional Council
MedShare's Western Regional Council Members with Executive Director Chuck Haupt
MedShare's operations depend on its volunteers to get these life-saving supplies to people who desperately need them. Learn more about volunteer opportunities or sign up.
Volunteer Appreciation Party!
The end of National Volunteer Week was marked by a special event at MedShare West’s facility on the afternoon of Saturday, April 27. Our warehouse was transformed into Candy Land as we welcomed more than 80 guests. Everyone was treated to desserts from around the world including Guatemalan cookies and sweet breads, Caribbean sweet potato pie, African puf pufs, Filipino turon, Iranian ice cream, French-style macarons, and Middle Eastern treats like baklava. The festive spirit was enhanced by live Eastern European folk music provided by Paul Litsky (one of our dedicated volunteers) and his band. We even had a performance of Irish dancing by Jilian Kuehnel, 7 year old daughter of our own Shannon Kuehnel.
Presidential Service Awards were presented to honor our most dedicated volunteers. Fifty two volunteers earned the award this year; twice as many as received the award last year! Silver awards (for more than 250 hours of service) were presented to John Morton, Marsha Felton, Nassim Nouri, Susan Dyer, Joe Margevicius, and Fran Jurcso. Bronze awards (for more than 100 hours of service) were awarded to JoAnna Morton-Hansen, Camille Harris, Camille Didas, Virginia Godkin, Audrey Ewart, Barbara Gasparian, Judy Bulman, Gail Carter, Arleen Sakamoto, Nancy Jee, Marsha Nishikawa, John Dietz, Susie Plumb, Lynn Moreau, Sandra Montgomery, Joe Ely, Richard Linde, Eve Stone Trimble, Karen Nelson, Gloria Jancoski, Nancy Marcotte, Paul Litsky, Sue Naset, Dr. Phil Fischbacher, Nancy Menne, Alana Musante, Ted Almida, Rissa Coplan, Lya Ackermann, Grace Kemp, Carol Fullerton, Milton Huynh, Kathleen Biondi, Cathryn Jew, Myron Zhang, Jason Lee, Dr. Helen Vajk, Robert Charkowicz, Philip Rice, Mary Lou Groff, Dr. Karen Rice, Barbara Bonn and Richard Novotny. We had three youth Bronze award winners (i.e. age 14 years or younger with 50 hours of service) including Vivek Bharadwaj, Takari Fucles and Elijah Levy. These three, along with Milton Huynh, are MedShare’s first volunteers under age 18 to receive the Presidential Service Award. We have been blessed many times by the continuing commitment of all these award-winning volunteers!
Special thanks go to Peterson CAT, a local company that helped underwrite the party through their Peterson in the Community program; Nassim Nouri, who donated the Iranian ice cream; Chris Roberson of Frostine Bakery, who donated the macarons; and Paul Litsky and his band. We appreciate all their contributions toward honoring these very special people, our volunteers!
To read the latest MedShare news, click here.
After shopping at MedShare’s Medical Team Store, Malini Veerappan and Rewa Choudhary of Palo Alto, CA, spent their summer traveling to Rayavaram, India to host what turned out to be a very successful eye camp. The town does not have access to eye care for its approximately 3,300 residents and the establishment of this clinic would be seminal to the improved health and the lifestyle of the residents in Rayavaram. The camp revealed the dire need for eye care services in Puddhukottai District and they are now working towards transforming the camp site (an ancestral home) into a permanent vision center.
Below is a letter we received from Malini and Rewa talking about their experience:
"On camp day they examined approximately 250 patients, with 33 of them being referred for and receiving free cataract surgeries at Aravind Eye Hospital in Madurai, India. They said that are very fortunate to receive Aravind Eye Hospital’s partnership and hope to continue working with them to establish the vision center.
During the camp, they assessed the effectiveness of our camp and found that the participants gave overwhelming positive responses. Given these positive results, they are now in the process of transforming the ancestral home camp site into a permanent vision center.
They have also identified four recent high school graduates from the community who are from economically disadvantaged families and encouraged them to apply for training at the Aravind Eye Hospital as technicians. These women would not have had an opportunity to gain a degree otherwise. After the completion of training in two years, they will be salaried health technicians permanently staffing the developing Sathi Vision Center.
We were very inspired by all of the support that we have received (from MedShare) and hope that you will choose to remain a part of this initiative. Thank you for your immense contributions! We couldn't have done it without MedShare's support- and I really mean that!"
Patients being treated at the eye clinic
To learn more about MedShare's Medical Team Store, click here.
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