November 12, 2003
Teacher provides overseas school supplies
Kathy Scott collects medical equipment for class in Africa
By
Herald staff writer
When Kathy Scott met two African nurses visiting Traverse City on their way to a CURE International conference this past September, they got her thinking.
Scott, a teacher in the physically or otherwise health impaired classroom at Eastern Elementary, spoke with the nurses from Kenya and Malawi when they came to observe her classroom. They told her about the lack of medical supplies they had for the children they work with.
"The kids they work with are much like the kids we work with, kids with cerebral palsy and spina bifida, but they don't have even the simplest of supplies to help the kids progress," Scott said.
"They might have three wheelchairs for 40 kids."
That's when Scott came up with the idea to collect wheelchairs and other medical supplies that children in her class had outgrown or were no longer using, and send them to the hospitals in Africa.
"My goal was to get things that people had sitting around, collecting dust, and put them to good use. It just seemed to make so much sense," Scott said.
She made arrangements to deliver the supplies to CURE International in Lemoyne, Penn., an organization that provides shipping of medical supplies to pediatric hospitals throughout the world.
"People have been very generous. We have received 16 wheelchairs, strollers, bath seats, walkers, crutches, brace and donations of other medical supplies like gauze pads, catheters and sutures. We have enough to fill a U-Haul truck. It's more than I ever expected," said Scott who delivered the truckload to Penn. this past weekend.
"It's pretty exciting, when they have nothing and we are able to send them something that will affect people in such a tremendous way. I'm hoping I will be able to do this again in a few months," Scott noted.
Anyone wishing to donate medical supplies can contact Scott at Eastern Elementary School, at 933-1660.