Haiti Clinic Revived

Rockford Residents Celebrate the Expansion of Their Biggest Village Yet in Haiti

	Andy and Florette Sokulski want to save as many lives as possible and have extended the fundraising for Food For The Poor’s Our Lady Of The Poor Medical Clinic in honor of their daughter, Julie Sokulski Hesser.
Related Item: Email Your Support of the Clinic

COCONUT CREEK, Fla. (Sept. 29, 2014) — Nine months of operational costs at Food For The Poor’s Our Lady Of The Poor Medical Clinic at the Bernard Mevs Hospital, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, will be covered, thanks to a Chicago couple intent on honoring the memory of their daughter. The Sept. 10 fundraiser in Streamwood, Illinois, was the ninth year the couple has gathered generous friends to help the poor.

Dedicated to saving as many lives as possible, Andy and Florette Sokulski have asked that fundraising in honor of their daughter, Julie Sokulski Hesser, be extended through the end of the year.

Food For The Poor Executive Director Angel Aloma and Food For The Poor Haiti Project Manager Delane Bailey-Herd spoke at the event and thanked attendees for their support.

“The compassion you show tonight will save lives,” said Aloma. “The majority of the clinic’s beneficiaries live in makeshift shacks, and struggle to earn a living. When the poor come to Our Lady Of The Poor Medical Clinic, they have full assurance that they will receive superior quality medical treatment.”

Thousands of patients benefit from and rely on the lifesaving medical services offered at this Food For The Poor sponsored clinic. The clinic’s AIDS Pediatric Care Center provides the poor with quality outpatient services, emergency treatment, diagnostic services through its state-of-the–art laboratory, surgical procedures, pharmaceutical products, and long-term chronic disease management.

“The lifesaving treatment patients receive at Food For The Poor’s Our Lady Of The Poor Medical Clinic is transformational,” said Bailey-Herd. “The clinic is an oasis and safe haven for babies that are born with malformations and need immediate medical attention. Here, they are loved and cared for, and given second chances.”

Since 2011, event proceeds have been used to modernize the Haiti hospital by building operating and recovery rooms, and purchasing new equipment. In 2012, Andy and Florette traveled to the Bernard Mevs Hospital to meet the hospital’s surgeons, and to see how patients benefited from their projects. Share in the Sokulski’s experience by watching their video at www.foodforthepoor.org/julie.

To make a donation to help cover the clinic’s monthly operational costs, please call 888-404-4248 or email carolc@foodforthepoor.com.

“When we face struggles, anxieties, joys and sorrows in our lives, it is good to know God has sent us help, and good people to laugh, support and have some fun as well,” said Florette Sokulski. “So much in this world is temporary, but friendships founded in Christ can be a lovely source of comfort and joy.”

When Andy and Florette lost their daughter at the age of 32, they were inspired to help others by Julie Sokulski Hesser’s strength, faith and courage during her final days. They began raising money in 2006 with Father Medard Laz and members of the Holy Family Catholic Community in Inverness, Ill., to create a living legacy in honor of their daughter through Food For The Poor projects.

Food For The Poor, named by The Chronicle of Philanthropy as the largest international relief and development organization in the nation, does much more than feed millions of the hungry poor in 17 countries of the Caribbean and Latin America. This interdenominational Christian ministry provides emergency relief assistance, clean water, medicines, educational materials, homes, support for orphans and the aged, skills training and micro-enterprise development assistance, with more than 95 percent of all donations going directly to programs that help the poor. For more information, please visit www.FoodForThePoor.org.

Teddy bears headed to Haiti, Jamaica, carry legacy of love

A South Florida man is carrying on his late wife’s legacy with his gift of 1,500 teddy bears to the international relief and development agency Food For The Poor. The charity will ship the bears to children living in extreme poverty in Haiti and Jamaica.

In February, when Jerry Gamble lost his wife, Jean, to heart failure, he was grief-stricken after 53 years of marriage. He knew that her bear collection was important to her, so he turned his grief to action to find good homes for the bears she sometimes called her children. He researched different groups and decided to give most of them to Food For The Poor to help brighten the lives of children living in destitute conditions.

As he sorted through the bears to bag and box them up for the children, he reminisced about the Saturday garage sale trips with his wife that ultimately resulted in thousands of bears.

“We always went together to the garage sales. She knew bears, I didn’t,” Gamble said. “It started when she saw two little bears lying in a driveway, waiting for the trash pick-up. I don’t know when her brain kicked in and she decided to collect them. It started to get a little crazy.”

Gamble built special wooden risers for his wife’s “bear room” and the collection continued to grow as her children made gifts of bears to her, and she continued to find and refurbish bears that had fallen onto hard times. The result of their 15 years of bear rescue will be a big load of love to children who have never had their own toy, or known the comfort of a plush bear in their arms as they fall asleep.

“Mr. Gamble has no idea what a blessing of love these teddy bears will be for these children who have so little, and who are so grateful to know that someone cares,” said Robin Mahfood, President/CEO of Food For The Poor. “He might never meet these children, yet they will feel the love he has for them.”

Food For The Poor supports more than 3,800 children in 95 orphanages through its Angels of Hope program. Many more children are helped through schools and feeding programs.

Food For The Poor, named by The Chronicle of Philanthropy as the largest international relief and development organization in the nation, does much more than feed millions of the hungry poor in 17 countries of the Caribbean and Latin America. This interdenominational Christian ministry provides emergency relief assistance, clean water, medicines, educational materials, homes, support for orphans and the aged, skills training and micro-enterprise development assistance, with more than 96 percent of all donations going directly to programs that help the poor. For more information, please visit www.FoodForThePoor.org.

Contact:
Kathy Skipper
Food For The Poor
Public Relations
954-427-2222 x 6614
wandaw@foodforthepoor.com