Friday morning, January 29, started out at a chilly 15 degrees. But still six of our hardy and well bundled up Lions showed up around 9 o’clock to help me clear out and clean up the medical loan closet of its overflowing contents. Within a little over an hour we had 2 full size pick-up trucks and two trailers loaded – Thanks Lion Warren and Lion Tony for bringing them.

We also had two smaller pick up trucks – Thanks to Lions Tuck and Eloise Woodfield and Lion Tom Jackson. All except for Lion Tom’s truck (loaded with only crutches) headed out to the BRETHERN CENTER in New Windsor, MD, to be distributed throughout the world as needed. Lion Tom’s truck went to Hopkins Children Center in Baltimore to be sent to Haiti which became quite an adventure as told here by Lion Tom.  (Tom”s Story).  Thanks to Lions Tom, Tony, Warren, Eloise, Tuck and Mary Francis. Your time and help is very much appreciated by me and you have helped to make a difference in someone’s life.

Tom’s Story: I got to the Children’s Center without any difficulty.  There was even a place to park right in front of the main door.   I should have known that was too easy.  The stock room they were storing the crutches in was overflowing.  So they sent me to the main hospital.   When I got there, first the officers out front didn’t know anything about crutches being delivered there.  After I explained the Children’s Center said they couldn’t take any more, they sent me inside to talk to the chief of security.   The chief said, yep, they had been taking the overflow, but now they were overflowing and had no more room.  So she called the lady who was coordinating the whole thing.  The lady was still at home, but about to leave for work.  But she wanted me to deliver them to her home if I would.   I said fine.  So I traipse off to somewhere in NE Baltimore (I saw parts of Baltimore I didn’t know existed, plus I went by Pimlico) to find this lady’s townhouse.   I got there just as she was leaving.  She wanted to keep track of how many pairs we delivered (67 it turns out) and she wanted me to tape the pairs together so they don’t get separated.  Her garage was already overflowing.  She had collected nearly 1200 pairs, counting ours.  Anyhow, trying to match up the pairs got to be an adventure because some didn’t seem to match any of the others, plus the tape used to hold them together froze so it wouldn’t unwrap.   Anyhow, they all got delivered, and I am now familiar with parts of Baltimore that few of us have seen.

If you need to borrow or want to donate items to our medical closet – click here.