DOMINICA: Straightening Spines
Three years ago, Sharena became the first young adult from the island of Dominica to benefit from scoliosis correction through a posterior spinal fusion. This surgery was provided to Sharena through World Pediatric Project (WPP), and supported through your donations to Globus Relief. World Pediatric Project works in Belize, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Panama, and in the Eastern Caribbean islands. Their mission is “to heal critically ill children and build healthcare capacity in the world.”
WPP’s mission, while originally focused on spinal corrections, has expanded to include an initiative to “centralize pediatric critical care services for all of the children of the Eastern Caribbean region.” Children from the islands surrounding St. Vincent who are in need of care travel to the Milton Cato Memorial Hospital. There they receive the needed attention from visiting WPP teams or from Dr. Ty-Asha Plummer, WPP’s full-time pediatric general surgeon. With WPP’s 150+ medical volunteers making up 45+ teams, over 2,000 children in this Caribbean region are able to receive not just life-saving surgeries, but are also provided care on an ongoing basis.
The positive impact of WPP’s work is best understood through the words of Sharena: “I am now a new, bold, enthusiastic individual living life to the fullest. Now I love myself and appreciate the way I look. Today my mission in life is to embark on a journey to help others in need. My life changing experience was made possible by WPP… I will be an advocate in my country, spreading the good news that no child should be denied medical care.”
Globus Relief
Globus Relief was founded in 1996. While working in the salvage retail industry, two Salt Lake City businessmen were saddened to see viable medical and hygiene supplies frequently sent to landfills. Certain that these surplus resources could be rescued and put to good use, they created Globus Relief to efficiently channel overstocked, gently used, or short-dated supplies to humanitarian projects in Utah and around the world.
Since our founding, Globus Relief has distributed over $1 billion (fair market value) of supplies to more than 800 charities at work in over 140 countries. Twenty full-time employees oversee the work of gathering, processing, and distributing humanitarian supplies in our 100,000-s.f. warehouse in Salt Lake City, Utah. Volunteers contribute an average of 225 labor hours per week, the equivalent of 5.6 additional full-time employees.
Globus Relief is known for strong financial efficiency, historically keeping administrative and fundraising expenses to under 3% of our total budget.
