This morning I went with a group from Veritas Church to volunteer at Medshare Atlanta. I had never heard of Medshare before. I find this interesting since their secondary distribution center is in San Leandro, CA, where I once lived.
Medshare's method is pretty cool. They collect unused supplies from local hospitals that would otherwise be thrown into landfills, in addition to accepting donations from companies and/ or individuals. The products are then sorted and boxed in set quantities so that a hospital or other facility can put in an "order" for supplies to meet their needs. A full container of sorted, labeled, and specifically requested supplies is then shipped to the recipient.
Today's project involved a donation from Kimberly-Clark, which donated about 60 pallets of sterile surgical gloves that would "expire" in September. US regulations require that the company put an expiration date on the package, and prohibit the product from being used after that date. For all practical purposes, the gloves actually don't expire, so perfectly good gloves would have been thrown away. About 20 volunteers spent nearly 3 hours reboxing 80,800 gloves so they can be sent to locations all over the world that are in need. We were told a few stories about specific cases where treatment did not occur because the hospital did not have gloves for the doctors and staff to protect themselves and others.
And then I got some more fun and sandy volleyball time in the afternoon rain with my classmates...
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