Baby hats for Nurses for Edna

Lynn Calkins has been an Ob-Gyn Nurse Practitioner since 1992. Early last November, as she was mentally preparing for her second medical mission to Fiji, she began to consider what her next mission might be down the road. She’d had been looking at going to Africa for some time, first inspired when she read the book, Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese.

She emailed One Nurse At A Time to inquire if we were involved in any medical missions in Africa. Sue Averill, President, replied immediately explaining that we do not really go on missions, rather they try to support those who are doing so. Sue suggested a medical mission to Edna Adan's Maternity Hospital in Hargeisa, Somaliland.

Having read Half the Sky and watched the two-part movie on public television, Lynn was familiar with  Edna's hospital and her personal mission to train 1000 nurse-midwives to disperse all over Somaliland to provide prenatal care, safe births, and teach appropriate newborn care in order to decrease the horribly high maternal-infant mortality rate. She went to Edna's website and learned more. She also immersed herself in Somaliland history, culture, healthcare via the library and internet.

At about the same time, several nurses from different parts of the United States and Canada contacted Sue wanting to volunteer internationally in women’s health. Sue connected these nurses via group meetings for the ones living in the Seattle area and later a Goggle chat that included the entire group. Soon, for before you could say, "Somaliland," we had an enthusiastic, energetic group of nurses looking forward to going to Hargeisa to volunteer, teach, mentor, support, learn in Edna's program. The team, Nurses for Edna was born.

“It has taken on a life of its own, with the terrific enthusiasm and support of Sue Averill and from One Nurse,” Lynn says, ‘That's my story, and I am exceedingly joyous that one little email has lead to this exciting adventure of generosity and caring. If Nurses for Edna can decrease the maternal-infant mortality rate by even one percentage point, it will have made it all worthwhile. And, from my previous mission experience, I know the nurses will receive far more than they give, even though they will be working very, very hard under arduous conditions.”

As it turned out, due to personal reasons, Lynn Calkins is not able to participate in the first Nurses for Edna medical mission in August 2013. She is, however, very much a member of the Nurses for Edna team and she actively supports the team as they prepare, gather equipment, and supplies for the mission. Most recently, Lynn led the women of the San Dieguito United Methodist Church of Encinitas, CA to knit 400 hats and blankets for the babies being born at Edna Adan’s Maternity Hospital! The Nurses for Edna medical mission team will deliver them in August.

One Nurse At A Time and the nurses of the Nurses for Edna want to give a huge THANK YOU to each of the knitters. One knitter at a time, one nurse at a time we are changing the world.

Edna Adan Maternity Hospital - NURSES for EDNA - Fundraising Event

One Nurse At A Time is sending a team of nurses to Hargeisa, Somaliland on a first medical mission to The Edna Adan Maternity Hospital. The nursing team, NURSES for EDNA,  are working hard to fund-raise for the much needed equipment and supplies for the hospital. 

One  nurse,  Kimberly Law,  has organized a fund raiser to be held at The Barley Mill Brew Pub in Penticton, BC on June 29.

5:00PM – Door Prizes

6:00PM Food

8:00PM Live Music (Uncorked)

Only $15.  Come out and show your support! Bring all your friends!


Thank you,

ONAAT

ONAAT MEETING

We had another successful ONAAT Meeting this morning...discussed our objectives and goals for the year, our fundraising plans and ideas for building and growing One Nurse At A Time. We met in Fremont at Hale's Brewery and had a fantastic lunch, great conversation and meeting! 

Some of the highlights we would like to share with you:

1. Fundraising -

This continues to be a constant concern. We want to help nurses everywhere, but we need to have the funds to help! We would love to have any ideas, thoughts or a person who may be passionate about fundraising talk with Sue about helping us meet our goals for One Nurse At  A Time. Some ideas we tossed about were text to donate, volunteering at local marathons (getting name out there), talking with larger corporations about donation and support, as well as thinking about Christmas! What! Yes, Christmas...hopefully we can connect with a great organization or club out there that may be looking for a charity to donate to during the holidays. 

2. Edna hospital Nurses -

We talked a lot about these four passionate nurses who are very interested in humanitarian work in Somaliland. A formal financial request was sent in by these nurses seeking financial assistance with their project to One Nurse At A Time. Here is a great link to learn more about Edna Adan University Hospital. Our goals are in line with getting resources and financial help out to these women who will be doing amazing and hard work in Somaliland. If you know someone who may be interested in helping, please email Sue!  Sue@onenurseatatime.org

3. Past ONAAT Scholarship Nurses -

This probably means you! =) We would really like to build up our community and our network of nurses and nurse volunteers. This means we need to hear from you. Sue will be working hard these next few weeks to months by reaching out to all of you for networking, giving you an update of where we are, and any financial assistance you can muster. =)

4. April Conferences - 

Sue is totally excited to go to this next month's conference! The conference is through the University of Phoenix Omicron Delta Chapter in Savannah Georgia, April 27th. If you are interested please click here Omicron Delta Educational Conference. The conference is based on International Nursing: Making a Difference One Nurse At A Time! Sue will be speaking at the conference and is so excited to talk about International Nursing!  Please register to attend!

5. Nursing Retention Research -

As a nurse, I can see the young newbies coming straight out of nursing school excited and thrilled to be out on their own caring for patients and making a difference in people's lives. As a nurse, I can also see nurses struggling with expectations, feeling like they are not making a positive change, overwhelming feelings, poor self-care and then sadly leaving the profession all together because none of these things are met. So, we hope to reach out to one of our recent scholarship recipients (you know who you are =) ) and work towards getting this information tied in closely to the satisfaction, sense of well-being, love for nursing, gratitude, and overall joy that humanitarian nursing brings to nurses all over the world!!

Whew!  It might not seem like it was a long meeting, but we all laughed, shared, pulled out great ideas from each other, and rejuvenated our own goals for One Nurse At A Time! Thanks so much for all of the hard work that you all put into our organization gals!!  

This means you -  Sue Averill, Karis Cady, Helen Jose, Christine Van Horn, and Kristi Whiton

All smiles!

News from ONAAT

Couple of things have happened over the last week. One great, and one kind of a bummer.

Let's get the bad news out of the way first...our Jo's Mission is cancelled for this November. It is cancelled because we did not have enough nurses to make sense for us to pursue this mission. If I remember correctly, I think we had 2 nurses sign up and we would have considered it IF we had a total of 4 or 5 nurses sign up...
However, this isn't all together bad news. We are not going to just write it off the list and forget about it...Sue is going to contact her network and see if this spring we can try and get another mission going for our first time nurses. I am hopeful.
One of the bigger stumbling blocks, we discovered with the requirements for an applicant was the Spanish speaking requirement. A lot of my ED nurses said "Hey! I was going to sign up for that, but I DEFINITELY do not speak Spanish." So with that thought in mind, I think we will look at the spring for a trip and possibly without the requirement that you must speak Spanish. Please stay tuned!
Ok- one to the great news. Sue with her endless abilities to work 24/7 has signed up ONE NURSE AT A TIME with CharityChoice Gift Card. Yeah! An answer to our never-ending questions to raising money for our organization.
The CharityChoice Gift Card is a program that enables ONAAT to be offered as an option for gift-recipients to select when redeeming their CharityChoice Gift Card. Our hope is that the more people we tell about our little organization the more we have to give to our nurses helping communities across the world!

Here is a link to the Charity Choice Gift Card: CharityChoice Gift Card

Fundraising, a battle

This spring my church talked about a difficult topic. The topic was money. HUSH!  Don’t talk about that!  It’s like a forbidden word- it’s never a fun topic at home, you usually don’t have enough, when you do have a little extra, you worry you may lose it, basically money although you think it is, it’s just not pleasant! 

The pastor who gave the sermon about money- gave an amazing sermon- she discussed the issues people have around it, why it is difficult to talk about it, and how to support each other and the church without breaking the bank. My in-laws who NEVER attend church (only did that day because our daughter was being baptized) walked out at the end of the service, in amazement. They were moved to discussion and that’s a big deal for this family, because money is simply NOT discussed.

   

This last ONAAT meeting we had last week, we talked about money…extensively. How do we get more of it!? Who do we need to talk to? Where do we go? What do we need to learn? Fundraising has never been a word I particularly enjoy. In my opinion, it is not FUN. I mean, really, who thinks it is fun asking people for money? I definitely do not.

Well our organization depends upon it- We depend upon donations from family, friends, grants, and sales from our gift shop. If we don’t have money, we are not able to help nurses, help our community, and help people!

You might ask how do we fundraise for One Nurse At A Time?

Here they are:

-  Buy our logo items  - scrub tops, sweatshirts, hats, teddy bears…etc. http://www.companycasuals.com/OneNurseAtATime/start.jsp

-  Make a charitable donation http://onenurseatatime.org/donate/ways-to-give/

- Make us your charity you would like to donate to this winter http://onenurseatatime.org/donate/ways-to-give/

- Use iGive (totally easy and simple) http://www.igive.com/

- Buy one of our books  “Womankind” or “Nurses beyond Borders” $10 plus shipping- email onenurseatatime@gmail.com

These are our current methods. They make a dent and help us grow our organization. We can't thank all of you enough, with making this dent!

 

Thanks for your help. 

                                                                - ONAAT Crew