04/28/2021
Hello Friends and Happy Spring!
I hope that you are all well, and happy that this long, dark and cold winter is finally over, and a new season will bring everyone warmth and promise of brighter times ahead.
I write to let everyone know that I'll be out of the office for the next two weeks to travel. We're usually quite busy come mid-May so if you've been putting off any medical needs, now might be the best time to make an appointment.
Katherine will be keeping regular hours (Monday, Wednesday and Thursday 9-5pm), so feel free to stop in and say hi and pick up supplies, or schedule an appointment at 307-200-4850.
Spring travel plans: Charity work in Guatemala!
We hope that you're able to travel to fun and adventurous locations this spring! Emerald and I are excited to be heading to Guatemala to do some work with Light A Life, an organization I've been involved with for the last several years, and we ask that you consider helping our efforts as we try to expand the positive influence we've been having there.
Here's some more information on this charity: https://www.lightalifecharity.org
Guatemala is one of the most impoverished countries on the planet, and I've been traveling there with organizations like Doctors Without Borders since medical school. Our mission with Light A Life is to help native peoples get their most basic needs met... we provide basic education on hygiene and avoiding parasitic diseases, encourage good nutrition by enabling the locals to eat more healthy and traditional foods, help put shoes on the feet of children, build low cost and easy to operate water filtration systems, and build basic cooking stoves and houses for local families who cannot afford them, and are often living in dilapidated shacks.
We try to stretch our dollars to the best of our abilities, and if you decide to donate, here is what we will do to change lives with your contribution....
Shoes:
We provide high quality "Shoes That Grow" which are very popular with local communities and cost us around $20 per pair. This trip we will be bringing down several hundred pairs to distribute, as we do each season.These shoes are adjustable using velcro strips, so they can be easily sized up as a child grows.
https://fundraise.becauseinternational.org/fundraiser/3204504
Stoves:
Indoor air pollution is pervasive and contributes to high rates of pulmonary disease and asthma in children. Most families simply cook over an open fire in an indoor dirt floor shack. For $150, we can build a family a high quality, efficient stove with a chimney, lowering firewood and charcoal costs, and improving indoor air quality.
Water filtration systems:
For each donation of $275 we're able to build each village a simple, continual use water filtration system to help remove what can be very high levels of pesticide and fertilizer in drinking water, and help reduce some of the burden of the pervasive parasites found in the area.
Nutrition:
Just like in America, the local people of Guatemala eat an overabundance of carbohydrates and grains, and can have a significant lack of plant-based nutrients, leading to an array of medical issues. We focus on education, getting the local peoples to appreciate their traditional Mayan culture, and once again focus on eating healthy plant-based nutrient-dense foods. We're reintroducing many of the Villages we visit to the traditional Chaya plant ("Mayan Spinach"), which is easy to cultivate, tastes good, and has high levels of nutrients lacking from the current diet. We will be providing specific cultivars we acquired for the different regions (mountain highlands or low elevation coastal) to maximize our chances at successful cultivation and adoption. Each tree will cost around $100 to plant.
Toilet systems:
Most of the villages we visit use simple trench toilets, typically just a board to sit on over a hole in the ground, often very close to their primary water source. This contributes to infectious disease becoming rampant among the population, with many children having parasite loads which not only stunt their growth, but often threaten their lives.This year we'll be starting to tackle this issue by building some experimental toilet systems to see if they're feasible and will be used and adopted by the villagers. We expect each of these toilet systems to cost in the $500 range, and will be expanding this initiative on further trips.
Houses:
For $950 we can build an entire family a hard-floored house; this is an unattainable dream for many of the rural families who often subsist on around a dollar or two a day in wages... if a job can even be found.
Willing to help out???
For those who are able to help financially, remember that no matter how hard this year has been for us, others live continually in extreme hardship, and are especially in need of help now.
Consider giving a bit to help us improve their lives and make our trip as productive as possible. There's a link to donate funds on the page below.
https://www.lightalifecharity.org
Thank you very much for your support! -Dr. James
Light a Life Charity aims to improve living conditions in third world countries. Donations for our current projects can be made through lightalifecharity.org and directly impact the lives of those who are in need the most.
