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This Father’s Day we reached out to a few the fathers in our Mending Kids family and asked them to share a little bit about themselves and their children. This is Dr. Mike Ford, an anesthesiologist who travels with us on our Guatemala ENT mission.  Here’s his story! (Pictured here in Guatemala with a lollipop!) What are your children’s names and their ages? “Jonathon (27), Rachel (25) and Joseph (20)” What is your favorite thing about being a father? “My favorite thing about being a father has been watching my children grow into kind, caring, wise human beings.” What surprised you the most about being a dad? “The most surprising thing about being a father is that you never stop learning. As your child grows, you go from watching Sponge Bob to watching them drive away in your car. It was a shock to my system when they started thinking on their own and looking at me as if I knew nothing!” What three adjectives would you use to describe yourself? “The three adjectives I'd use to describe myself are loving, caring and supportive.” What would surprise your children most to know about you? “My kids would be surprised to know that I was actually cool in high school and college.” What should all fathers know about being a parent? “Fathers should know that there is no one playbook for raising kids. Each kid requires their own set of plays. One size does not fit all. You learn as you go and you will make mistakes, but its okay.” Why do you volunteer with Mending Kids and what have the experiences meant for you or your kids? “Volunteering for a medical mission was something I've always wanted to do. I believe in giving back, sharing knowledge, learning from others, inspiring and being inspired. Helping others is fulfilling. It makes me feel like I am an asset to this world when doing something to help another human being, whether it's providing medical care, helping with academics or simply making someone smile. It's the best feeling.” How do you celebrate Father’s day? “My family typically celebrates Father's Day by giving me a card with words of appreciation and a gift. In the evening we usually have a big feast prepared by my lovely wife, with help from one of our children. I mostly enjoy spending quality time with my family. Unfortunately, this Father's Day I'll be at work!” Our next father is Jose L Trejo, he is the father of one of the children who received surgical care at our Hometown Mission in Los Angeles.  Jose is pictured here with his three kids! Here is his story!
“My Name is Jose L Trejo My children are Josephine Trejo 12 years old Jorge Trejo 10 years old And Randy Trejo also 10 years old” Can You Tell us a little about your children and your experience before finding Mending Kids? “It hasn't been easy for me and my wife since we had our first child Josie ,she was born with many health issues and conditions , we been in many hospitals since and it's been a roller coaster with her health , her main concern is her kidneys , she was born with a kidney disease and right now she is a kidney transplant recipient. When Jorge and Randy were born for us was like a reward from heaven for not giving up with Josie. We were so happy, but little later my son Jorge , we noticed he was born with a little birthmark on his face very close to his left eye, at the beginning there was nothing visible but little by little it was growing and getting darker and darker. When Jorge was around 3 years old it was already very noticeable and other kids started to make fun of him and the bully was an everyday thing he was also already attending school and he was getting depressed and did not want to go school. One day he came from school , went straight to the bathroom and he was trying to remove the birthmark with soap ,water and a towel. That’s when I found out , Jorge was not happy and he did not want to have friends and didn’t want to talk to anyone, he was very sad and shy. I did not know what to do and I called the doctor to see if they could help me to remove it but they told me it was not a health related issue and they didn’t want to help me. After that I tried to see if I could pay a doctor with plastic surgery but it was so expensive and we did not have that kind of money. Right here I lost hope and I was feeling that I was not going to be able to help my son Jorge, I thought about getting a tattoo in the same spot Jorge had his birthmark ,showing him that it wasn't so bad. One day I came from work and watching the news saw a report about Mending Kids helping kids like my kid and I wrote the phone number and I did call right away not knowing if it was real or maybe the Doctors were not real doctors, it was very hard to believe. But Mending Kids took my call and that's when the miracle started for us. How has your life and your children's life changed since finding Mending Kids? “Our lives have changed so much , Jorge now enjoy life like any other kid and he smile every day he is a happy little boy. He is so different , he has lots of friends and that makes me so happy. Mending Kids restored hope in our lives and I am grateful for that every single day of my life.” What is your favorite thing about being a father ? “That I have the biggest gift ever , which is to watch my kids everyday growing , laughing and having a happy life I'm a very lucky guy. Sorry I'm a very blessed person that sounds better.” What surprised you the most about being a dad? “When I come home from work and my 3 kids run to the door to kiss me. That’s my best reward in life.” What 3 adjectives would you used to describe yourself? “I care for other, I share with others and hard worker , try to be excellent Dad” What would surprise your children most to know about you? “That I will give my life away, any time for any of them.” What should all fathers know about being a parent? “They should know the real meaning about Sacrifice . When you have kids it is not about you anymore, it's about your kids.” How do you celebrate father's day? “I celebrate father's day every day of my life , having my kids , watching them grow, having a happy life and getting blessings from God every day that's how I celebrate. GOD BLESS MENDING KIDS”  If we have learned anything from the hundreds of past missions we have deployed overseas, it is how to prepare for the unexpected, adapt on a dime, and pivot forward to accomplish the task at hand. It takes teamwork, resourcefulness, compassion, humility, and looking past obstacles to seek opportunities. Thanks to the generosity of our partners at Americares and Medshare, along with the Open Hearts Foundation Challenge, and your invaluable support, we have been able to source, purchase and distribute thousands of needed PPE and supplies to the Los Angeles Department of Health Services and many others. (See the list in our previous blog.) As hard as we have worked to provide a measure of relief for those near to us at home, we have also juggled supporting our kids abroad. Heartbreakingly and frustratingly, one of our babies from Iraq who was visa and medically-approved for heart surgery when the travel ban took place, succumbed to Tetralogy of Fallot. Our hearts are with his family during this unimaginable time. Dozens of other children remain on our waitlist, hanging on to hope that mending will come soon. Sarivelle remains safe in India, awaiting the notice that she will return home to the Democratic Republic of Congo. We realize that we can’t save the world, but with your continued support, we might possibly save someone's world. If you can, this #GivingTuesdayNow, please give to help us support the frontlines (or become a monthly donor)? We are all in this together. Together we are mending kids. Isabelle Fox Executive Director
We continue with preparations for our 8th annual Hometown Mission 2020 and we are currently accepting referrals for patients - children (0 - 18) who may be in need of elective procedures that have been denied coverage by insurance. For more information please call: 1-800-993-5680 or visit www.mendingkids.org/htm   If you shop on Amazon for necessities, go to Smile.Amazon.com and designate us. A percentage of your purchase will be donated to Mending Kids. The more page “likes” we get, the closer we are to corporate sponsorships. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook and stay up to date on our mission to mend more kids.
 Mending Kids secured donations for the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services by reaching out to our medical supply partners, MedShare and Americares, which normally provides Mending Kids with medical supplies for our overseas surgical missions. The donations were delivered to DHS’s PPE center on Skid Row today by executive director, Isabelle Mejias Fox, and board member, Dorothy Lucey.
By STEVE LOPEZ COLUMNIST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES
APRIL 15, 2020, 3 AM Good people doing good things in troubled times. It’s a story that doesn’t get old, and here’s one more chapter. In ordinary times, a Glendale-based nonprofit called Mending Kids sends volunteer medical teams around the world to perform pediatric surgery on children in need. But the coronavirus crisis forced a pause for a charity that has flown to the rescue in more than a dozen countries over the last 15 years and served more than 4,000 kids. “All of a sudden our surgical missions were grounded,” said Mending Kids’ executive director, Isabelle Fox. “Our doctors still wanted to travel, but the risk to them was that they’d be quarantined when they got back home, and their practices would take serious hits.” As a result, stockpiled medical equipment intended for foreign service was sitting unused while stories about supply shortages at U.S. clinics and hospitals abounded. Mending Kids had hundreds of masks, along with gowns, face shields and oxygen supply equipment. “My first instinct was — how can we have the most impact with what we have, here at home?” said Fox. Fox first checked with the doctors, nurses and other medical staff who volunteer with Mending Kids and provided equipment to those who needed it at their regular workplaces. Fox also wanted to get equipment to anyone doing social and medical outreach for L.A. County’s thousands of homeless people. To that end, Fox called a friend, and before long she was connected to Sieglinde von Deffner, an L.A. County coordinator of skid row services. Von Deffner, a social worker, is one of the many unsung heroes who for years has worked the streets here in the homeless capital of the United States. I once wrote about a woman living in her car at a hospital where she was getting dialysis treatment, and someone asked me, “Have you called Sieglinde?” I hadn’t but after I did, the dialysis patient got housed. When Fox caught up with her in mid-March, Von Deffner and the county’s Housing for Health team had been temporarily redeployed from skid row to Dockweiler State Beach in Playa del Rey, where teams were setting up isolation and quarantine units for COVID-19 patients and those exposed to the disease. Some of the few dozen people in the temporary housing were homeless, some had been in shelters, some were living in overcrowded conditions. The point was to get them proper medical treatment and limit the spread of the virus. At that point, the workers already had protective equipment, Von Deffner said, but she knew that N95 masks and other supplies could be hard to come by, So she asked the L.A. County Health Services Department’s medical director on the Dockweiler team, Dr. Heidi Behforouz, if they could use a donation from Mending Kids. “She said, ‘Heck yeah, we’ll take it,’” said Von Deffner. “The conditions were really challenging because of the wind at Dockweiler,” said Von Deffner, something that made contact with sick clients seem all the riskier. She said she maintained a six-foot distance between herself and the others, but medical staffers needed to be in close contact with the clients they were caring for. Back at Mending Kids headquarters, Fox, volunteer Bob Rubaszewski and others began loading supplies into vehicles. One of the organization’s doctors — ear, nose and throat specialist Dr. Ayal Willner — was there for a board meeting and helped sift through the supplies to determine what might be most useful to a quarantine camp. “I said let’s go,” Willner told me, and he drove one of the vehicles to Dockweiler, where he helped unload the equipment. Willner, a board member at Mending Kids, has traveled to far-off places to perform surgery and help train foreign medical teams, so there’s a sustainable service in place. He is scheduled to travel to Tanzania in June, but fears that mission will be postponed. He also works on Mending Kids’ L.A. mission, which is to perform surgeries on local children who don’t have access to healthcare and are bullied for scars or physical maladies. “I’m thankful to have the opportunity to go to Tanzania and Guatemala and help people there and to train their physicians, and also to help here with our hometown mission,” Willner said. “It’s an honor.” The delivered equipment was put to good use, Von Deffner said, and the Dockweiler camp served its purpose until the county was able to move clients there and the medical team to a hotel in Bell Gardens. But the relationship between the county and Mending Kids didn’t end there. The usual medical supply chain has been disrupted worldwide during the pandemic, and it’s now a case of “grab what you can wherever you can get it.” Mending Kids, because of its global connections, has been able to scramble, tap sources and get supplies. And Fox has kept in touch with Von Deffner. “We did more fundraising through our donors,” Fox said, “and were able to buy masks and face shields and gloves, and I called Sieglinde back and said, ‘Is this gonna make a difference?’ She said absolutely, so last Friday I loaded a couple hundred face shields and N95 masks ... and we had a portable ventilator we use for kids who are having open heart surgery.” Fox delivered most of the equipment to Von Deffner but took the ventilator to MLK Hospital. “I know everybody is crazy for ventilators right now,” she said. “They had 11 ventilators on hand and 10 were in use with six more on order. And today, I coordinated for another ventilator to be sent to them.” Von Deffner said the bulk of the latest donation from Mending Kids is now in use at the hotel that’s serving as an isolation and quarantine center. The rest is being used by the public and nonprofit medical teams serving skid row, where Von Deffner is working again. And she said Fox has told her she’ll be shipping more supplies, including a large stash of masks, as soon as she gets her hands on them. We’ll have lots of dark and painful memories when, down the road, we look back on this prolonged test of our resolve. We’ll think about the loss of so many lives, the blow to so many businesses and the economic hardship suffered by millions. But we’ll also remember this as a time when a day did not go by without a story about somebody doing something good for somebody else. We hope that you and your families are healthy. Please wash your hands, don’t touch your face and stay home if you can. It is our best course of action against this virus.
For those who can't, whether because they are working on the front lines or because they have no home, we have been doing what we can to provide a measure of hope and assistance. Many of our grounded - destined for overseas - medical supplies were donated to the Department of Human Services Dockweiler containment camp for the homeless population battling COVID-19 last month. We have been coordinating the acquisition of personal protection equipment (PPE) and we are currently distributing it to our family of Mending Kids clinicians and to groups supporting some of the most underserved members of our greater Los Angeles community. On Friday, we delivered our portable ventilator to Martin Luther King Community Hospital to help support their life-saving efforts. They currently have only 11 ventilators (6 more are on order) and our donation is expected to be crucial in their efforts to treat this vulnerable community. We acknowledge that one ventilator is a modest donation and that Mending Kids is not in a position to help everyone in the world who is battling this virus, but this ventilator may mean the world to the patients and their families who benefit from its use. As the weeks of uncertainty and social distancing unfold and we adapt to this new reality, life (saving) goes on. Please stay safe and healthy and please let us know how you are doing. We are all in this together. Together, we are mending kids. Isabelle Fox Executive Director Iquitos, PeruWe were supposed to be returning from Iquitos, Peru this week but like most everyone else in the world, everything came to a screeching new reality. Our hearts go out to the patients we were unable to help along with the nearly half-million people in this Amazon region who reside in the largest city in the world without access by road. When we checked a few days ago, there were 65 patients battling the virus and they were being treated at the Hospital Regional Loreto where we would have been operating. There are only 5 ventilators to support this population. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers. Thankfully all our Individual International patients are doing well. However, they are stuck with us here a little while longer or riding out the pandemic halfway across the world. We are working to get them home as soon as it is safe and possible to do so. Individual Care Patients
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Adrienne Johnson Cell: (626) 673-4424 Email: adriennejohnson1111@gmail.com Mending Kids, a Non-profit Organization Delivers in Demand Medical Supplies for Isolated Homeless COVID-19 Patients Glendale, Calif., March 23, 2020-As widespread shortages of medical supplies rapidly increase during the global coronavirus pandemic, Mending Kids, a non-profit organization, donated their own stock of supplies to the Department of Human Services stationed at Dockweiler State Beach RV Park. Located at 12001 Playa Del Ray, Dockweiler RV Park is one of many locations in Los Angeles County being temporarily used as a COVID-19 isolation and quarantine containment zone to shelter ill homeless individuals in need of a place to self-isolate. Like many non-profit organizations and local businesses, Mending Kids, which provides surgical care to underserved children in the US and internationally, has taken a proactive approach in response to the coronavirus outbreak. To minimize the spread and potential exposure of the virus to employees, patients, and the public, and in accordance with California’s “stay-at-home” order, the organization has temporarily halted its Overseas Surgical Missions. The Hometown Mission, one of Mending Kids core programs, will continue to help children in need of outpatient elective surgeries when it is safe to do so. Without hesitation, during this critical time of need, collaboration, and community, Isabelle Fox, Mending Kids Executive Director, along with Dr. Ayal Willner, ENT surgeon and Mending Kids board member, collected supplies from the non-profit’s inventory which included Tylenol, wound care, nasal cannulas, IV fluids, gloves, glucose analyzers, and stethoscopes among other necessities. These donations will go toward supplementing much needed medical resources which will be used for homeless patients quarantined at Dockweiler State Beach RV Park. Mending Kids urges individuals or businesses with extra masks or other personal protective equipment (PPE), to reach out to Hello@mendingkids.org so these resources can get to those in need. “There is no point in hoarding or watching our medical products expire. We need to do our part as an organization to support our brave local medical community and clinics battling this pandemic on the frontlines.”-Isabelle Fox, Executive Director of Mending Kids For more information about Mending Kids or to refer a patient to the Hometown Mission program please visit: www.mendingkids.org For the past 15 years, Mending Kids has relied on the support of volunteer doctors, nurses, and medical personnel. Now more than ever, these doctors, nurses, and medical personnel who are currently working on the frontlines battling the COVID-19 pandemic need our support. They are in dire need of personal protective equipment (PPE) to keep them safe and free of the spread of this virus. Mending Kids is currently working on coordinating available supplies. If you have extra masks or PPE, please reach out to us at Hello@Mendingkids.org. If you would like to help us purchase needed personal protection equipment for our healthcare heroes, donate online or Venmo @MendingKids.  During these difficult times, we are donating medical supplies to those in need. This past weekend, gloves, masks, disinfectants, Tylenol, among other things, headed to 2 clinics and a mobile unit that are operating out of Downtown and East L.A. monitoring COVID-19 and taking care of adults and children, the underserved and the homeless population. Dr. Dina Brent, a pediatrician who donates her services to support our Hometown Mission patients, came by to pick them up. She is one of our heroes on the frontlines. Additionally, Mending Kids staff and doctors delivered carloads of Tylenol, wound care, hygiene packs, nasal cannulas, glucose analyzers, stethoscopes and blankets to Dockweiler State Beach where the COVID-19 containment camp is stationed, equipped to house the sick homeless individuals who need to be isolated.
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