It’s a milestone for a local volunteer organization as they send their 75th shipment of medical supplies to Central America.
Medical Equipment Modernization Opportunity’s Director says a shipping container will soon be making its way to El Salvador to supply hospitals and small businesses.
#Tbay volunteer org. MEMO loading its 75th shipping container of medical supplies, bicycles, sewing machines to send to El Salvador. pic.twitter.com/ttDLLFfnWo
— @country105news (@Country105News) June 29, 2017
Dr. Jerome Harvey says patients will benefit from new supplies like syringes, plus older equipment that can still be used.
“These beds are still quite functional, but they’re getting newer ones,” he explains, adding that the bedframes from a local long-term care home were discarded because of new provincial regulations.
Volunteers also loaded the container with wheelchairs, bicycles, sewing machines and other supplies.
#Tbay MEMO volunteers loading shipping container for El Salvador communities. Dir. Jerome Harvey says others have gone to Cuba, Nicaragua. pic.twitter.com/2wt87mhI7w
— @country105news (@Country105News) June 29, 2017
The bicycles will go to a repair shop that employs young men who Harvey says would otherwise join gangs.
The sewing machines, he explains, will be used in a sewing business that gives women an opportunity to earn an income.
For the past six years, MEMO has been working with Cecilia Huezo, a woman whose family moved from El Salvador to Thunder Bay when she was a teenager. Harvey says she returned to El Salvador to start a community development program in a rural village.
Organizers say the shipping cost for the supplies was paid for by Thunder Bay couple who wish to remain anonymous.(Staff Photo)