How I Live United: Rev. Nathaniel Edmond

Nathaniel Edmond is the Pastor of Second Baptist Church.  Under Pastor Edmond, the church has experienced tremendous growth numerically, financially, and most importantly spiritually.

Pastor Edmond has served in numerous leadership positions within community organizations. His services include the National Alumni President of Xavier University of Louisiana; Board of Governors’, Xavier University; Board of Trustees, Judson University; Board of Directors, United Way of Elgin; Board of Directors, National Association for Sickle Cell Disease, Basileus of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity and Board of Directors, Sherman Hospital.

During the ten years that Rev. Nathaniel L. Edmond has served as the Pastor and Spiritual Leader of Second Baptist Church of Elgin, IL, he has been an advocate for the youth in the community and the classroom. Under the leadership of Pastor Edmond, the church began a partnership with Sheridan Elementary School on January 9, 2006 with 24 trained volunteers who serve as mentors and tutors to 45 students identified as “at-risk.” In 2007, the Sheridan School Partnership was expanded to include Larsen Middle School, and renamed the SBC School Partnerships. On January 19, 2008, the ministry received the M.L.K. Humanitarian Award from the City of Elgin. They also received the Alpha Kappa Alpha Award for Volunteerism in the spring of 2008 and in November, 2009, the Elgin Area Chamber of Commerce honored the Second Baptist School Partnership Mentors for donating 1,712 volunteer hours to students since 2006.  He encourages others to give as much of themselves as they can.  “There’s more than enough of you to go around if you let it happen,” says Edmond.

Read more “Live United” stories on our blog. To submit your “How I Live United” story, or to nominate someone else to appear on our website, please contact us.

Boys and Girls Club Video for United Way of Elgin

The Boys and Girls Club youth spent a lot of time on this great summer project—a video about United Way of Elgin and our services! Check out what the youth came up with as a finished project. We think it’s great, and we’re very thankful to all the Boys and Girls Club Members involved in making it. Enjoy!

You can volunteer to help at the Boys and Girls Club here!

Haiti Update: A Board Member’s Perspective

Just after the Haiti earthquake hit, one of our board members shared his past experiences as a medical missionary in Haiti on our blog. He recently took another trip to Haiti–his first trip after the earthquake–and wrote the following piece about his experiences.

by Stephen Joyce, MD, MPH
Member, Christ Community Church
Board Member, United Way of Elgin

Having just returned from Haiti for the third time, it’s not so much the poverty any more that stands out, it’s the struggle.  Every day, despite evidence of the recent tragedy everywhere around all the time, there’s a lot of ‘busy-ness’ going on.  No one around there seems to be sitting around, other than some upright sleeping U.N. troops.  The people of Haiti are indeed resilient, living in tent cities on top of rubble foundations.  Still there are daily struggles for food and water, and quite a few people in need of surgery appeared for care last week.  Two nights before leaving the last Gala fundraiser was held for King’s Hospital, and both Drs. Morqutte and Hyacinthe had stories to tell.

It was quite an evening, and the only thing to miss is that you may have learned a lot ‘first hand’ almost about what goes on in Haiti and at King’s.  Turns out they were noted as one of the top hospitals in responding to the earthquake, despite their smaller size and not even being officially opened yet.  Due to aftershocks, they had to do surgery under the trees in the yard for three days, sunup to sundown, finishing the last surgeries each day by lantern for fear that the building might collapse.  It didn’t.  Most others did.  They described how they had been inundated with supply donations for a year prior with four shipping containers full of supplies having been received, and more casting supplies than they ever thought would be used “in fifty years” –  their stores were overflowing.  Not only did their hospital survive essentially intact, so did the orphanage, their home and the school they’ve built, and neither they nor any of the children they care for nor their staff was injured in the slightest.

They had a visiting volunteer surgeon ‘with nothing to do’ the day before the earthquake, who had come down for a week.  On the Saturday after the quake, when the ‘staff” had reached exhaustion, with 35 open fracture patients still having been waiting for three days, the first international mission team was finally able to make their way to the hospital – and it included orthopedic surgeons.  A week prior to the catastrophe Dr. Hyacinthe, the hospital director, had completed training of a group of local young men in antiseptic cleaning techniques to do hospital housekeeping, planning to only actually hire them sometime later as the hospital got underway.  Some of them came to help, and along with Dr. Hyacinthe, make ’rounds’ in the open yard every half hour to hour distributing handfuls of pain pills and literally simply pouring iodine from a large bottle over everyone’s open wounds.  But as bodies were being piled in the streets of Port-au-Prince around them, and despite a dry dusty wind blowing following one of the worse catastrophes ever in one of the filthiest and poorest cities on the planet, and them doing surgery by lantern on rocky ground under trees in the open – NOT ONE single wound or surgical infection occurred.

There were just too many things, in just the right place, and at just the right time, for anyone involved at any level, to not know that this was very clearly more than coincidence, much more than chance or luck.  After all, the hospital was founded for and provides care in the name of His Son.

For my part, I saw those with malnutrition, dehydration, pneumonia, bladder infections and malaria, chronic back strains and hypertension and head-to-toe scabies and ringworm.  Pregnancy unknown or unwanted, old age and decrepitude.  The 87 year-old walking with a short can and bent over 90° for the last four years – the strong smile and repeated thanks from his…daughter? The language barrier is frustrating, but not to be succumbed to.  Creole, or French?  There were men sifting rubble by the roadside, to reuse the concrete dust for more concrete.  Women carrying up to 20 dozen eggs on their head up a hill – each coated in wax to preserve them in the tropical heat…

…and still the bright smiles, and bright faces.

S. Joyce, MD, MPH, United Way of Elgin Board Member

A medical missionary’s experiences in Haiti

by Stephen Joyce, MD, MPH
Member, Christ Community Church
Board Member, United Way of Elgin

Port-Au-Prince, Haiti is an absolutely lovely spot–for a giant slum. Haiti literally means “High Hills”, and the once lush tropical island’s Western nation capital sits along a lovely bay with still beautiful mountains to the south and east. And that’s where the fantasy ends.

The poorest nation in our half of the world (the Western hemisphere), most of Haiti’s millions have suffered untold misery for years. Once a slave colony ruled by the French, native islanders (the Taino Indians) were nearly wiped out long ago and replaced by captives from Africa. Like our “Tomb of the Unknown Soldier”, once having achieved their freedom and independence after a 13 year struggle that began late in the 19th century, there is a commemorating and achingly yearning “Statue of the Unknown Slave” near the center of the capital.

Modern Haiti is the result of many decades of foreign occupation (including the U.S., from 1915-1934), corrupt governments, and exploitation of its resources, including a French demand for “reparations” (backed by the U.S. and others) for having freed themselves from the French, which took this small nation 122 years to pay off.  So impoverished, Haiti is now 90 percent deforested, due to Haitians not only cutting trees down for wood, but burning them down to make coal to sell. The city streets in some areas of Port-Au-Prince (“Port of the Prince”) are lined with people selling everything from cell phones to kitchenware to furniture to live chickens. Infrastructure is sorely lacking, including things like intermittent electricity in the capital and hit-or-miss running water. Men push or pull huge loaded wooden carts for lack of trucks, dripping sweat in the hot sun, in scenes that look like something from the dark ages.

Having twice been to this beaten-down nation as a short-term medical missionary, I have been struck and deeply touched by the kind and gentle nature of many Haitians. Bad enough that their countryside and treasury have been ravaged repeatedly, that coups and gang violence lead to the need for a U.N. peacekeeping force since 2004–but on top of that it’s been one disaster after another in recent years.

Near the end of my first trip there, with no building codes, very limited heavy equipment, and lacking in modern construction techniques, a school collapsed, trapping and ultimately killing hundreds of children. Over 24 hours after the collapse there were still some desperate parents on the collapsed upper story roof, futilely attempting to gain access to their children with one crow bar and a hammer. The street below was packed full with more anxious and wailing parents.

The next year four named tropical storms in a row (Fay, Gustav, Hanna, and Ike) hit, with vast flooding, wide-spread disease, destruction of shops, churches, and over 20,000 homes, with tens of thousands more damaged, nearly 1,000 dead and 70 percent of the nation’s crops destroyed. Add in the downturn of the global economy and rising food prices, and in 2009 large numbers of Haitians were reduced to eating dirt cakes—literally fried dirt—just to have something in their stomachs. Other severe storms in 1994, 1998, and 2004 (Hurricanes Gordon, Georges, and Jeanne) killed nearly 5,000 more people and devastated more crops and homes.

This all comes on top of a baseline of severe widespread poverty and suffering to begin with, which touches nearly everyone. Two Haitian physicians, with funding help from Lumiere Medical Ministries in Gastonia, North Carolina, and groups from Christ Community Church in Saint Charles, have built a new charity “Hospital” called King’s Charity Hospital (a largish clinic by U.S. standards); they run an orphanage as well. One of these men is a surgeon, the other an obstetrician and gynecologist, and while they live in a lovely home, they have no hot water and have to rinse all of their dishes in bleach solutions using collected rainwater from their cistern. They also have intermittent electricity, and often go without any power at all. Despite being surrounded by a six-foot high concrete wall topped with barbed wire and imbedded glass shards (as are many buildings in Haiti, including kindergartens and the supermarket they use, which also has two armed guards with pistol-grip shotguns patrolling the parking lot), they have been robbed more than once.

Staying with these two dedicated and caring physicians (who could have prospered elsewhere in the world with their educations), our small group took cold “showers” from pipes without shower heads and gravity fed water pressure, when not having to bathe from a bucket when the roof water tank was empty because there was no power to pump the cistern water to it. They have a generator (guarded by a really, really unfriendly beast) but can afford to run it only a limited basis, and often may have no fuel anyway.

At night the city becomes not only more dangerous in terms of assault, but also much more toxic as locals burn kerosene and make fires for light and cooking, even setting tires alight. Add to that the crawling rush hour traffic of aged vehicles with limited pollution control—just walking around outside can make the unaccustomed sick. And then there’s the endless dust from the dry heat of the hot sunny days. Conjunctivitis, chronic cough, sore throats, and “dry eyes” are rampant, taking on new depths.

Working in their original King’s Charity Hospital, which was basically the second floor of a somewhat unfinished small warehouse-like building with bare concrete and rebar exposed in the ceiling and some walls, we had no air conditioning or running water, very few supplies (mostly brought with us), and even more limited basic laboratory testing. Still, we were fortunate to have what we did. Across the street was “City of the Sun”, one of the largest homeless camps in Port-Au-Prince, literally standing on top of the city garbage dump. The “parking lot” for the hospital was rutted dirt and became a mud pit when it rained. Having been told of American doctors coming to help, Haitians arrived daily from hours away by “Tap Tap”, which is a nickname for the many small pick-up trucks with benches in the back and a cap top as the most common form of public transport. They came to see us—some ill, some with ill children, or both—all day without food or water. The nurses counted thirty women and children exiting from the back of just one “Tap Tap” (tap tap — on the roof, for the way to signal the driver to stop). We were treating people with malaria, TB, ulcers, pneumonia, old injuries, rashes, malnutrition, and various intestinal infections.  These infections are the most common cause of infant death–Haiti’s infant and child mortality rate is roughly 10 times that of the U.S.

On the next trip we worked out of the unfinished concrete shell of the new hospital, with concrete dust everywhere, no power or water, and no windows when we arrived (a few were put in while we were there, but it still rained on all of our supplies one night and flooded our “pharmacy”). A young girl passed out while waiting in the heat to see us one day and went into continuous seizures. Our medical leader had to flag down a passerby in a car just to get her to a fully functioning hospital elsewhere. The driver did not hesitate to help, abandoning whatever plans he had.

We saw the same travesties of health as before. Unlike in the U.S. where people usually seek help within days (if not hours) of the onset of a health problem, the Haitian patients I saw often had suffered symptoms for anywhere from months to several years. Can you imagine having a common ailment, such as a stomach ache, for 6 months or even years?  Or that in addition to starving much of the time or at least being hungry most of it, and living in a make-do shack down by the riverbed where you bathe and wash what few clothes you have in the same place where all the sewage goes?

I always bring extra snacks like granola bars and nuts with me to work because of patients like Phillipe, the young, hollow-looking child who had diarrhea and a rash. According to the pastor who brought him, he was living on water and the few cookies a day the pastor could give him. These stories go on and on, none of them good, most very sad, and many heartbreaking. I always gave away all of the food and water I had when there was someone there at the time who needed it.

What would New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris, or even Chicago be like if all of these conditions hit one city? Each of those cities has populations roughly similar to that of Haiti’s–nearly 10 million. Now add the earthquakes–it’s hard to imagine, but I do know one thing. There but for the Grace of God go I, and you.

Youth United Way Wraps Up a Positive 2009

Youth United Way is an active group of local high school students with a vested interest in honing boardmanship skills and learning about their charitable community.  The group, started in 1997, works with local social service agencies to plan and implement service projects.  Planning takes place at monthly board meetings, which are student-run.  The students are responsible for all aspects of their projects and are supported behind-the scenes by sponsor Judy Cabrera and others who help them develop their philanthropic goals.

Youth United Way volunteers each week at the Community Crisis Center to read to children, play games, and tutor while the moms in the shelter attend sessions.  Additionally, they have carried out many larger service projects, including:

• Donating $500 worth of diapers to the Community Crisis Center and helping with their annual auction in March.

• Helping coordinate, promote, and staff the Frock Swap in August

• Stuffing envelopes for U-46’s United Way Campaign in September

• Setting up for Centro de Informacion’s auction in October

• Participating in the Community Crisis Center outdoor clean-up

• Holding a cookie bake for the soup kitchen for which they baked and bagged 1,000 cookies

• Holding a food drive for the Community Crisis Center and Salvation Army in November, which resulted in 3 van-loads of food

• Helping with the Community Crisis Center’s Toy Give-Away, including shopping for $1,000 worth of toys, setting-up the Hemmens Center, and staffing the give-away.

In 2010, the Youth United Way members are looking forward to planning a wide-range of new service activities.  They are currently looking for ways to help raise money for runner Bruce Johnson, who will run across the United States as a fundraiser for the Crisis Center.  They are planning a kickoff event on January 8th, featuring a band composed of group president George Rapidis and YUW members, Brandon Couture and Chaz Sirridge called “The Reverends.” The event will be 7-11pm at Douglas Street Sports Bar & Grill.

United Way of Elgin Year in Review

In 2009, the United Way of Elgin has seen both challenging times and overwhelming victories. We have shared in the communities suffering and growth throughout the year, weathering financial storms and coming together stronger as a united front. Though this year has seen its difficulties, the United Way is proud to look back at all the amazing accomplishments of 2009 – accomplishments that would not have been possible without the generosity and dedication of the community.

In February we launched the Dolly Parton Imagination Library program to bring free books to the children of Elgin.  The program, sponsored in 2009 by Provena Saint Joseph Hospital, has enrolled over 2,400 children and distributed over 15,000 books.  We were also recently awarded a $50,000 grant from the JP Morgan Chase Foundation for the 2010 program.

This summer saw the expansion of the Kane County Guide to Community Services.  The web guide is designed to allow users to search for the exact services they need by using better keyword searches, allowing users to narrow the results based on their location, and more information about each agency and the services they provide.

The fall ushered in a transition in leadership as board chair Sean Stegall stepped down and board member Mickey Brown was elected to fill the role.  Additionally, the board welcomed five new members in November and December, all with a background in leadership and a passion for volunteering.

In September we hosted our 14th annual Day of Caring by organizing a community-wide food drive to benefit food pantries in Elgin and South Elgin.  Over 50 local businesses held food drives, while nearly 300 volunteers helped collect, sort, and pack up the food. The volunteers also helped deliver the food to six different food pantries: All People’s Interfaith Pantry, Centro de Informacion, Community Crisis Center, Salvation Army, South Elgin Food Pantry, and Two Rivers Head Start.

In October, board members voted to help support Northern Illinois Food Bank’s Back Pack Program, which sends underprivileged children home with backpacks on Fridays filled with enough food to get them and their families through the weekend. The United Way’s donation will ensure that children from the participating schools of Lowrie, Huff, Gifford, and McKinley will be able to continue receiving these packs. These schools serve a higher proportion of low-income families – between 75-85% of students are eligible for free or reduced lunches. The program hopes to serve 250 children in these four schools this year.

The late fall also saw the beginning of a new funding cycle for United Way agencies.  Agencies were invited to submit an application after their letter of intent was approved, and the volunteer impact councils are ready to begin evaluating the programs in early 2010.

The end of the year also brought an early Christmas present to the United Way in the form of a $300,000 endowment from the Louis and Minnie Kunos Trust.  We were one of four charities who received a portion of the estate.

With 2010 on the horizon, we look forward to another year of great accomplishments. The United Way of Elgin thanks the community for its financial support as well as its generous gifts of time and talent. We all win when another child succeeds in school, when families are financially stable and when people have enough to eat. Together we are changing what we see in our community and we couldn’t do it without you.