Crutches 4 Africa- An Update
CRUTCHES 4 AFRICA update!
I won't go back to far with this, just to this past June. On the 12th of that month a 40" container was loaded and sent to Mombasa, Kenya
Sounds easy doesn't it.
That four letter word "sent" takes up way more space in reality than it does in print! (By the way, everything that was collected in Evergreen and Conifer over the past 2 years is in this container!)
The container, once sealed, was trucked to a Denver area railhead and was moved to Houston TX. It was then loaded onto the MSC "Flaminia" container ship on the 28th of June. We received a tracking tool and the ports of call where our container would shift to a new ship and continue its journey. This tracking tool shows the position of the ship during it's time upon the open sea.
As I was working late one night, and 7 days for our ship to be in open water when I checked in with this tracking tool and I saw that our ship was in the middle of the Atlantic, headed NE toward Europe. Hmmm…. looking more closely at the details I see that this ship is heading for… hey, Belgium isn't in Africa!
Next night I checked the tracking site again and read this headline "MSC "Flaminia" explodes, burns, crew abandons ship"!
My first thought was "steep learning curve ahead"!
Three days of rapid emails and we received word that our container had been removed for the "Flaminia" two and a half days before the incident at sea!
Were we on the wrong ship? Taken off just in time? What do you think?
That container did reach dry ground again in October and is now "resting" in Mombasa, Kenya awaiting distribution.
Rotary (the service club) is a big part of all that we accomplish in C4A.
In September I was a speaker at a Rotary "zone" meeting in Kansas City MO. This gathering was a conference for the leadership of Rotary districts representing 12 states and was an ideal situation to speak about disability and the need for mobility in the developing world.
This is now leading into an expanded area of collection and an opportunity to connect with more people and encourage them through sharing mobility gear for the "invisible people".
The end of September we flew out to Philadelphia where we rented a 24' box truck. over the next three days we processed and loaded it with salvaged mobility devices (mds). In the middle of packing (forklift and just stackin by hand) I had another opportunity to share the vision of this endeavor to a Rotary club there in Philly. That afternoon we drove to NJ where we stayed with friends from Kenya that live there in the piney woods.
Next day we drove toward NYC, parked the big truck, rented a cargo van and drove into NYC, twice (uhoh, I am in the wrong lane!"). We made it to our rendezvous site in Brooklyn only a few minutes late. This gentleman, Tim, has been collecting for C4A for several years. Almost single handedly he collected and entire air cargo shipment that was distributed in Tanzania in 2008. Since then, we always find he has collected more! And all without a vehicle!
We loaded the van full! Back in NJ it rained on us as we transferred the mds from van to truck, returned the van and headed north into CT.
The next morning in about as rural as you can get in CT (what a contrast from NYC the day before!) where we met for the first time a collector there that has also been with Crutches 4 Africa for many years.
This last pickup loaded our truck to the point it was hard to close the back door!
Most of these mds was unloaded in Methuen MA to fill out a 40'er headed to Tororo, Uganda. This is the same place we started with 235 pairs of crutches.
After 2 days working on the unload of the truck, then organizing the mds and reloading them into the container, we headed for Portland Maine with 25 remaining wheelchairs. More on them in a minute.
There in Maine we stayed with dedicated friends of C4A that had arranged for a week of Rotary meeting speaking engagements. This saw us traveling (by donated car, truck was returned in Maine) into three states, Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts for these meetings.
Now about those wheelchairs. Late in July I was contacted by a friend of C4A in Maine with a request for a 40'er to go to Northern Nigeria to accompany a Polio vaccination effort there. A team of orthopedic surgeons will also be coming in to do polio reconstructive surgeries and those people will need mobility devices. There will also be hundreds that come hoping for surgery but will not be eligible. They to will receive from this container.
This shipment was decided to come out of Maine as they had enough to fill half the container. Our challenge was to see the container filled, and quickly.So from Maine we flew down to Atlanta Georgia where a convention of home durable medical equipment distributors was ready to commence.
We attended this convention and found a distributor that donated 10 palettes of mds, mostly wheelchairs, arranged for shipping to Maine, where they will arrive on Monday the 29th of October and a where a 40' container will arrive the next day at 1pm for loading by volunteers from Rotary.
At the moment we are coordinating the distribution trip to Kenya slated to begin for us on November 18th with VPs from the donating company will come over the first of December to help with some of the distribution. We will return to Denver on Monday, December 17th.
Somewhere in all of this the container to Uganda will also need to be picked up and shipped to Uganda.
And don't forget our fundraiser On February 2nd, the day before the Super Bowl, the CABIN FEVER CHILI COOK-OFF will be held again at Mt. Vernon CC.
Sponsors and auction items needed!
David & Candice Talbot
PS. Dave is having his 60th birthday soon and we are collecting donations for a gift for him of 1,000 pair of hand carved, African crutch tips. At a dollar each, we need two thousand dollars.
Send to: Crutches 4 Africa, 284 S. Franklin St. Denver, CO 80209