$500, $706 raised for our 2009 round of Free Clinics!

Lester, Gerald, and Marjun: 3 surgeries fundraised from 2008!

Hi everyone!

Our initial goal was $500, but we have surpassed it and raised $706 for our upcoming clinics next month. These funds will be used to purchase and distribute medicine, milk, and supplies for poor children in the towns of Baclayon and Mantatao in the province of Bohol, Philippines. (Wiki).

Three free children’s clinics will be held this year on July 13, 14, and 15. One clinic in Baclayon proper, and the other two on islands off of Bohol’s coast, Pamilacan and Mantatao, where poor children can’t afford a trip to mainland hospitals.

We have just been notified that additional medicine would be donated from donors in Manila. This will help free more of these funds to aid children who will be in need of life-changing surgeries to their cleft palates/lips and colostomies.

I will be first of the volunteers to leave for the Philippines on July 6. We will be back from our trip on August 4, after which photos and updates will be uploaded here. Donors will be updated by email (list of donors below!)

Why?

I don’t have any children but from August 11, 2005 to February 14, 2007, I took care of my mom after her stroke, giving me a brief but life-changing glance at parenthood.

After caring for my mom I brought her to the Philippines to stay with family, but once I got back to California, I felt helpless. I devoted a year of my life sustaining the life of my mom, who raised me by herself for 26 years. With that thought I felt useless and unworthy of every opportunity that came my way. Until I came upon the Flora Apalisok Free Children’s Clinic on May 1st, 2008.

Celina, the clinic’s founder, raises money every year to organize free children’s clinics in the Philippines. When I found out she did this in the same province that my mom resided in, I took the opportunity to help by designing and maintaining a website for her and accompanying her during last year’s mission. I feel this is an opportunity to make my mom proud, to visit my mom once a year during these missions, and to make myself USEFUL again.

The photo above is of 3 children whose surgeries the clinic fundraised and organized for on September of 2008. It was then that I got to know Celina and found out that not only is she a single mother like my mom, but that she created the clinic and named it in honor of her own mother, Flora Apalisok. I am now helping this clinic to honor my own mother too.

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Please donate today or volunteer!

If you can donate, please do so via the “Donate” button below! You don’t need a PayPal account to donate, just enter the amount you’d like to give and click “continue” on the lower left hand of the page. You may also send a check to the addresses below or call me for more information. If you are planning a trip to the island and would like to help, please email me at albutin@yahoo.com!

Every little bit counts, whether its $1, $10, or $20. But whether you can give or not, I thank you for taking the time to get know what has made me who I am today: my mom.

-Albert “Aljay” Balbutin Jr.

415 990 7015 / albutin@yahoo.com

If you’d like to send a check, please make it payable to “The Flora Apalisok Free Children’s Clinic” and send it to the clinic address at: 1499 Bayshore Hwy, Suite 218 Burlingame, CA 94010-1743

Donations are tax deductable! The clinic is an official 501c3, EIN 94-3373677.

This is Lester whose colostomy was closed late last year thanks in part to donations from friends of the clinic!

Donors!

Michael - Fairbanks, Alaska.
Robert - SLO, California.
Derek - San Jose, California.
Vianney - Antioch, California. (Also organized a pool party fundraiser!)
Chantily - Chicago, Illinois
Jonathan - San Francisco, California
John - Hayward, California
Sophia - Daly City, California
Bless - Los Angeles, California
Brian - Daly City, California
Carl - Daly City, California
Helen - Pinole, California

And many other anonymous individuals… we thank you all.

Clinic Details: 97 of the most indigent children of 2 towns, Baclayon (2 clinics) and Mantatao (1 clinic). All children are chosen by that respective town’s Medical Health Officer (MHO) or equivalent. Most are stricken with long-term ailments.

July 13:
Baclayon proper
-50 children
-1 doctor

July 14:
Mantatao Island
-22 children
-2 doctors, including the town mayor

July 15:
Pamilacan Island (off the coast of Baclayon)
-25 children
-1 doctor

How a “clinic” works:

1) Preparation:

Our field officer in Bohol contacts the Municipal Health Officer (MHO) of a particular town. Towns are usually chosen via referral from doctors met in previously-held clinics, or by volunteers who have roots in those towns. The MHO provides a list of its most needy children, who are usually discovered after having been admitted by their parents or guardians for life-threatening illnesses or by word-of-mouth.

During this time, a call for donations and volunteers occurs. 1-2 weeks prior to departure, our director then purchases vitamins, medicines, and other supplies that cannot be obtained in the Philippines.

2) Mobile Clinic:

Upon arrival, the town MHO is visited and final preparations and scheduling occurs. On the day of the clinic, 1-2 volunteer doctors from the chosen town are there to help, as well as volunteer nurses, and general volunteers to help with set-up and supply distribution. Tasks like weigh-ins, sign-ins, and screenings are delegated among this facilitating group as well.

Each clinic usually requires 2 days - 1 day of screening and checkups and a follow-up day for specific families who need additional care, advice, and medicines which were not previously acquired for the first day.

3) Post-clinic:

Since only the most needy and sick children are aided, more often than not, we find children who are in need of surgeries. Usually ranging from colostomies, facial deformities, or cleft lips and palates, the clinic director and US-based volunteers then depart Bohol with a promise to the families that they will return with enough funds to pay for their respective surgeries and necessary hospital stays. An example of these “surgery-missions” can be found here. We also call these missions, our “special projects.”