Regular volunteers Jack Murphy and Gene Barksdale help process medical supplies at the Brother’s Brother Foundation warehouse. Photo Contributed
With a mission to serve overseas, Brother’s Brother Foundation is utilizing Fairfax and the D.C. area as a second home-base for its operations.
Brother’s Brother Foundation is originally based in Pittsburgh and opened its Fairfax location in May 2013. On July 26 from noon-2 p.m., they are celebrating over a year of success with an open house at the warehouse featuring a keynote speaker, a cake cutting and heavy hors d’oeuvres
According to Debbie Baucom, National Capital Area Office Co-Director, the event is open to the public and she invites anyone interested in finding out more about or getting involved in the work that Brother’s Brother does.
Brother’s Brother is non-profit organization founded in 1958 that sends medical and educational supplies overseas to countries and people in need. The organization works primarily by collecting supplies that hospitals can no longer use or no longer need.
“Supplies comes to us and there can be very good stuff that comes to us and items that were parts of kits or surgical packs,” Brother’s Brother president Luke Hingson said. “Or you have hospitals that are donating wheelchairs or IV poles and part of the reason for that is that they want to standardize.”
Another reason that Hingson pointed out that hospitals can no longer use perfectly good equipment is new weight capacities for U.S. hospitals. This type of equipment is great for Brother’s Brother.
“For example they could give a wheelchair to us because it could hold 200 pounds but now they need to be able to handle a larger person, but it’s not worn out, it just doesn’t have the right capacity,” Hingson said.
To collect, sort, organize, and pack the equipment from various locations, Brother’s Brother uses the help of many volunteers.
“We need lots of volunteers,” Baucom said. “We often get mixed supplies from hospitals. We have a big truck and it will all be mixed up and our volunteers will go through these boxes of supplies and rebox them with like items.”
Much of what Brother’s Brother receives is operating room packs. These packs often come with pieces missing or with pieces not compiled and hundreds of items must be sorted through. Ruth Anderson, National Capital Area Office Co-Director, said there are also volunteer opportunities in a more managerial way.
“There are people who help with publicity and management and event planning,” Anderson said. “We love when volunteers join our event planning teams. (Volunteering with Brother’s Brother) supports this global mission that we have whether it’s an event planner or sorting medical supplies, it all supports the mission.”
Anyone interested in helping Brother’s Brother in some way can contact Anderson directly at randerson@brothersbrother.org.
“We couldn’t function without our volunteers. They are the backbone of the organization,” said Dr. Barry Byer, a board and trustee member for Brother’s Brother. “We need them to provide the manpower to do the sorting inventory and packing at the warehouse. We love them and they mean so much to the organization.”
Byer became a part of Brother’s Brother after being a part of Cross Link, a smaller organization in the D.C. area that did similar work. When Brother’s Brother started the new location in Fairfax, it took over Cross Link to create a bigger and even more effective organization.
In addition to helping with work stateside, Byer is a physician and travels overseas to do hands-on medical work with his team.
“With the supplies and equipment (Brother’s Brother) provides we’re able to do surgeries, some of which are life changing,” Byer said. “My team has done cleft lips and palates. We’ve been doing children with crossed eyes who are a year to three or four years and they come in with their eyes crossed and the surgery takes 30 minutes and they leave with their eyes straight. That isn’t life saving but it sure is life changing.”
Byer takes two-three trips a year to Honduras and has been doing so for about 15 years. Through those many years and surgeries, Byer has an image that always stayed with him.
“What has stuck with me is that you have the mother coming in holding the child; the mother is very concerned and the child is just looking around the room,” Byer said. “And after the surgery the mother sees (her) child’s eyes and the child is typically crying but their eyes are straight. But the mother is beaming, she is elated. From those mothers we get these thank you’s over and over and how much they appreciate us.”
Visit the Brother’s Brother Foundation website at www.brothersbrother.org for more information about the organization.