Big coin needed to ship medical supplies
Anyone who shipped off a parcel to family or friends this past holiday season knows it can be costly to get gifts to their destinations.
Langley Lions Club member Ray Tremblay knows only too well the difficulties of shipping items abroad, only his gifts are the size of shipping containers and the gifts are medical supplies Canadians no longer need.
Thanks to generous donations, another shipping container full of supplies are ready to be sent off to Honduras to help some of the poorest communities in the world.
But the Lions needs public help to cover the transportation costs of $8,500. Tremblay said that’s the only hold-up.
This is the fourth shipment Tremblay has overseen and the second one leaving from Langley. It all started with Lions collecting about $60,000 in school supplies which were delivered in 2002, helping about 13,000 kids. Children there can’t attend school is they can’t afford school supplies.
While the education materials were cherished, the Lions, including Tremblay, who went down to Honduras saw that the medical system was critically ill and started collecting supplies and equipment.
In a handful of undisclosed locations, the club has squirreled away used hospital and retirement home beds, computers, cast-off medical equipment, and much more.
“We have all kinds of stuff in hospitals here that is thrown away,” Tremblay noted.
A couple of medical/dental shipments, each containing donations worth more than six figures, have already been sent to South America, and given to hospitals, health clinics and even a fire department. (Tremblay is a retired firefighter).
The Lions have sent a used ambulance, packed to the ceiling with supplies.
“The ambulance has been converted into a medical clinic, a mobile clinic,” he explained.
When some Lower Mainland dentists merged their practices into one building, they donated all the gear from their former offices.
As word spread throughout B.C., health-related groups and organizations, such as retirement homes, would offer up their surplus goods.
Tremblay said once a person has been to a country like Honduras and seen the conditions, they can’t ignore the need.
“You come back a changed person,” he commented.
The Lions have provided what amounts to life-altering supplies to impoverished people where there is little or no social safety net like Canada’s.
“If you help somebody – a child or a person – it doesn’t matter whether they live across the street or across town or in another country,” he said.
The Langley Lions Club receives help in its efforts from the Lions Multiple District 19, the regional organization that includes the 64 clubs of B.C. and the Pacific Northwest U.S. as well as Lower Mainland hospitals and seniors homes that donate old equipment and supplies. CARE, the international relief organization, has a long history of working with local Lions Clubs and helps ensure the materials are distributed when they arrive in South America.
