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Warming Hearts and Feeding the Hungry
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Utah
Warming Hearts and Feeding the Hungry
Six years ago, when a child from Pleasant Grove created an annual tradition to help the needy, his community followed his example and rallied around him. And thanks to his continual efforts, he has inspired neighbors and strangers alike while feeding hundreds of people in the process.
BY HALEN HUBBARD
In the Bible, there is a story about a woman named Tabitha who cared for the needy and sick within her community. When she passed away, people were deeply saddened because of the major impact she had made. A group of them found the apostle Peter in a neighboring town and asked him to come raise her from the dead. After she opened her eyes and stood up, the story of Tabitha was spread throughout the region.
A lot of us can probably think of a person who, like Tabitha, has served many in their community. However, it is rare when a kid is one of these people. For the past six years, now-14-year-old
Timmy Hong has shown his community that he is truly a modern-day Tabitha.
the heart oF a ChilD
One day, when Timmy was 8 years old, he came home from school, and his mother, Debbie, could tell that something was troubling him.
“They were doing a charity drive at school, and he was upset because there were kids that didn’t have any homes or any coats or socks,” she recalls. “He would just worry about that. Then, we went up to Temple Square, and there were people asking for money on the street. He just looked at me with tears in his eyes because there were these unfortunate people, and he wanted to help. That’s when we came up with the idea of selling hot chocolate to raise money for Tabitha’s Way Local Food Pantry.”
It was a little rough to get the ball rolling on Tiny Tim’s Hot Chocolate Stand the that first year. After a big family project of making posters and putting together the stand, the family set up the stand on the corner of their property. It was freezing cold that winter, which made it difficult to make a lot of money when most people just wanted to stay home.
However, the hard work of putting it together was not in vain. The Hongs’ neighbor’s son had passed away right before Christmas, and it was a tradition in their family to give $100 to each child to spend on someone else. So, the neighbor visited the stand and donated $100 in memory of his son to keep the tradition going even after his passing.
“Every year, it seems like we have a story like that where there’s somebody donating in honor of a passed loved one,” Debbie explains. “Another year, a family of 20 from a few towns away heard about the stand and wanted to come support it in memory of their brother.”
a team eFFort
The stand requires a lot of preparation and help from Timmy and his family in order to make it work, especially as it has gotten more and more popular each year.
Debbie has a homemade recipe for the hot chocolate. On the day the stand opens, she is the one responsible for heating it up and transporting it. “We have definitely spilled a lot in the car over the years,” she chuckles.
Timmy and his father are the first ones to set up the stand and get it ready to start selling. They set up the table, condiments, and signs in the parking lot of Daylight Donuts in Pleasant Grove, owned by Zeke and Lorraine Perry, who are neighbors of the Hong family. Timmy wanted to set up his stand in the parking lot because it was a busy part of town where lots of people would pass by. When he asked them if this would be okay, not only were they happy to allow him to do so but they were also happy to supply one free donut to everyone who purchased a cup of hot chocolate. Heidi Eberly, an employee at Daylight Donuts, has seen the impact that this partnership has made. “Zeke and Lorraine are staples in this community and are always so generous in helping and giving back where they can,” she says. “They are very fond of Timmy and his family and loved the idea of raising money for the food bank at a time of year when donations are needed the most. Timmy spearheads the annual event, and we just make sure to have enough donuts on hand. We are always happy to help Timmy in any way that we can. He and his family do a lot of good for their community.”
After they have all packed up at the end of the day, Timmy keeps the fundraiser open for a couple more weeks for people who want to donate even if they weren’t able to visit the stand, and he now receives donations from all over the country.
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Timmy also donates his own money to the cause. “There was a year when Timmy had been saving up for a big purchase, and he had about $200. We were getting ready to deliver the donations when he brought out all his money and put it in the pile,” Debbie recalls. “We told him that he didn’t need to give all he had, but he said that he already had so much that it felt good giving it to someone who needed it.”
taBitha’S Way
In June of 2010, Wendy and Jody Osbourne founded Tabitha’s Way Local Food Bank in Spanish Fork after Wendy felt that she needed to make a difference in her southern Utah County community. Six years later, in July of 2016, Michael Carter and Al Switzer founded a second location in American Fork.
“The Utah Food Bank said that their greatest need in Utah was in north Utah County,” Carter explains. “We were surprised by that because it’s a normal, middle-class area. The biggest reason for the need, however, was because there was no food bank in this area.”
Between both locations, they are helping between 7,500 and 8,000 people every month. Some of the biggest demographics of people they help are seniors and veterans.
“It’s amazing how many people get a check for $800 a month from the government, and they have to live on that. Even without a house payment, that is hard to do, but many of them are making a choice between food and rent,” Carter says.
Tabitha’s Way is unique in many ways when it comes to food pantries. Despite being a full-time pantry, they rely solely on volunteers. In Utah, there are more than 150 food pantries, but there are only around 14 that operate full time.
Because they’re open all the time, Tabitha’s Way also gets to know the people they are helping on a very personal level, and they try to help them in more ways than just providing food. Near the beginning of the school year, they provide backpacks for kids, and at the beginning of this school year, they were able to provide 2,400 backpacks with school supplies they donated to the school districts. Not only does this help the children, but it also helps the teachers who would have to pay for these supplies out of their own pockets. They
also put together children’s birthday bags that have toys, games, tablecloths, cups, and other supplies.
When it comes to helping adults, Tabitha’s Way also does what they can to make their lives a little easier and stress-free. They will refer people to other agencies for job placement or homeless services. They will also put together meals for families during Thanksgiving and Christmas so that they can have a nice, home-cooked meal with their families on those holidays.
Last year, Timmy was able to raise $5,000, and he has raised about $17,000 to date.
“It’s interesting because we have companies that come in and donate like Timmy would, but probably every year he’s been one of our top 10 contributors,” Carter shares. “It’s just inspiring to see somebody who cares that much at an early age and that really loves other people that much—loves them enough to stand in the cold, sell hot chocolate, and to go out and talk to people and get them involved.”
Timmy not only donates the money he makes from the stand but he also spends time in the food pantry volunteering with his family. He helps sort food and gets it ready for people to pick it up, and Timmy and his family are able to actually meet and talk with the people they are helping with their stand. Timmy especially likes to help people load their groceries into their car.
a moDern-Day taBitha
Even with all his hard work and big heart, Timmy continues to remain humble in everything that he does. “I think it is just good to know that the stand helps a bunch of people,” he says. “It’s fun to make the posters and spend time with the family.” However, the people around Timmy have a lot more to say when it comes to explaining the importance of what he is doing. “I think it’s a good lesson for people that this little 8-year-old boy wanted to help, and it was really upsetting to him to see that people didn’t have the things that he had. Even an 8-year-old boy can make an impact on his community,” his “Even an 8-year-old boy mother, Debbie, says. can make an impact on his community.” Carter is very appreciative of Timmy, having personally seen the impact that his hot chocolate stand has made on the community. “He is such an amazing young man. He really is a modern-day Tabitha. In our vernacular, he’s doing exactly what she did. She dedicated her life to helping the community. He’s still going to school, and he’s dedicating himself as much as he can to helping his community.”
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Soaring Towa
Brolin Mawejje is masterful on the slopes—carving through snow and soaring through air with complete grace. Unless you know his story, you would think he had been snowboarding his entire life. But he was 12 years old before he even saw his first snowflake.
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It would be 10 years before Mawejje, one of seven children, would have the opportunity to leave the country’s violence and instability behind and reunite with his mother in Boston.
A New Life
The reunion didn’t go as planned, however. “It was like moving in with a stranger,” Mawejje recalls. “She had a completely different life. The circumstances did not align, so that led me into the foster care system.”
As Mawejje struggled to adjust to his new country and his new life, he found himself bouncing from home to home once again. It was during this time, as an anxious and angry 14-year-old, that he began to find solace in the unlikeliest of places— the snow-covered mountains of Massachusetts. Mawejje enrolled in Burton’s Chill program—an after-school program that gives at-risk youth an opportunity to develop character and skills through boardsports. “Coming from a tropical country, snow wasn’t something that I’d ever experienced. All we knew in Uganda was dry season and rainy season,” he says. “Snow and I were not the best of friends, but I really liked being outside, and I was curious about snowboarding. It became a kind of therapy. It allowed me to have confidence, community, and friends.”
Life was improving for Mawejje. “I had a great guardian named Susan. She took care of me and helped me to get into prep school. She was a calm, older lady,” he recalls. “But then her husband was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and I needed to find a new place to stay. I had friends who were willing to lend me a couch, but it was my best friend’s family who stepped up to the plate.”
The Hessler family happily took the teen in. The only problem was that they were soon moving to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. So, “they approached my mother and got permission to legally adopt me,” Mawejje explains.
From East to West
At age 16, Mawejje moved to Jackson Hole with his adoptive family and spent the next couple of years sharpening his snowboarding skills. “My competitive edge came from wanting to fit into my new family,” he says. “To this day, they are some of my favorite snowboarders to ride with.” But becoming a professional snowboarder wasn’t the only thing on Mawejje’s mind. When he graduated from high school, he moved to Utah to pursue another dream—the dream of becoming a physician.
“I’ve known since the eighth grade that I wanted to be a doctor,” he says. “At a young age, I understood the power of medicine. I understood the power of disease and death and war. I’ve had a lot of family members die from the AIDS epidemic and other diseases that plague Africa.”
Mawejje won a merit scholarship to Westminster College in Salt Lake City, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and public health. Because he was so close to Park City, he was simultaneously able to further his snowboarding career. “I could be in the mountains in the morning and then come down for class,” he says.
But snowboarding is far from cheap. To make ends meet, Mawejje worked three jobs and often slept in his car. He ws also able to pick up some sponsors to help pay for his training and equipment costs. Today, some of his sponsors include Jackson Hole Resort, Bombas Socks, and Burton—a sponsor he is especially proud of. “It’s a dream come true because Burton is like the Nike of snowboarding,” he says.
Representing Uganda
Mawejje’s Olympic dreams are set firmly in reality. “My path to snowboarding was a little bit late—I’m a whole decade behind other competitors. There was never a chance for me to represent the U.S. because I would be competing against 5,000 kids who have been snowboarding their entire lives,” he acknowledges. “So, why not wear the name of my home country? I know where I come from and where I was born. I’m proud of it.” But, as Mawejje explains, “You can’t just show up in an Olympic year or within an Olympic qualification cycle and say, ‘Oh, by the way, my mother was born in this country.’ There’s so much that has to go into it.”
Mawejje’s biggest hurdle was persuading the Ugandan government that they should allow him to create a Ugandan winter sports federation—an important step required by the International Olympic Committee. “I had to convince a whole tropical country that really puts all their dimes into two Olympic medals—which are [Summer Olympics] running medals—to open a whole division and believe in the idea of changing the image of a nation and of a people,” he says.
Mawejje’s tenacity paid off. In 2017, with the support of the Ugandan government behind him, he was able to travel to Kazakhstan to compete in the 28th Winter University Games for a chance to represent Uganda in the 2018 Winter Olympics.
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Olympic Trials
In Kazakhstan, Mawejje had a remarkable performance. “I broke so many barriers,” he recalls. “I proved a lot of things to myself, and I was moving up the ranks. I was in sixth place.”
During the last series of competitions, however, Mawejje’s Olympic dreams were suddenly derailed when he landed in the hospital with what doctors deemed to be a life-threatening heart arrhythmia. “Throughout the competition, you have checkups. A lot of countries bring their own doctors, but I couldn’t bring my own, so I just ended up getting a general checkup,” he explains. “My heart was beating at such an abnormally slow pace that they thought I was dying. The doctors were telling me that I had a hole in my heart and that they needed me to sign away my organs.”
He continues, “My whole life was breaking down in Kazakhstan. So, I called my mother. Doctors were shocked when a white lady showed up. That’s where it helped to have dual citizenship—to have a little bit of American power on my side. Long story short, it really put a pause on my life.”
After conducting further tests at Massachusetts General Hospital, doctors gave Mawejje a clean bill of health. “What happened in Kazakhstan was a misunderstanding of African American anatomy and how my body works,” says Mawejje. But the damage was done—his shot at the 2018 Winter Olympics was gone.
An Uncertain Future
Devastated but not defeated, Mawejje jumped back into competitive snowboarding. “I had that hunger from missing an Olympics, so we just hit the ground running at the world championships,” he says. He also took the opportunity to continue his path toward medical school. “I went back and
earned my master’s degree in epidemiology. Here we are a couple of years later, and the world is dealing with a pandemic that requires epidemiologists. It’s kind of ironic.”
COVID-19 has made Mawejje’s future at the 2022 Winter Olympics even more uncertain. “I have created a spot for Uganda, but I still have to go through the qualification—I now have to compete to put my name into that spot,” he says. “It’s hard. A lot of the competitions are getting backed up right before the Olympics, and that’s a huge challenge.”
More Than a Sport
Mawejje won’t know if he qualifies for the 2022 Winter Olympics until mid-January. But whether he makes it or not, he intends to make an impact on the world. “I love snowboarding, but it’s not my only identity, and it’s not everything,” he says. “Snowboarding is more of a tool. It can be my platform for bigger and better things.”
One of those “better things” is working with Joy for Children Uganda and Girls Not Brides—nonprofits that work to promote gender equality and end child marriage in Uganda. “I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve this journey I’m on, but I’m always looking for ways to give back and pay it forward,” Mawejje says. He also volunteers at Chill Salt Lake City, a branch of Burton’s nonprofit that helped to spark his own passion for snowboarding as a youth. He is also serving as an official Chill ambassador. “I want people to understand that I’m here to stay,” he says. “I want to be involved in Utah and see what more I can do for this community that has given me so much.”
As Mawejje continues to blaze his trail in competitive snowboarding, he aims to give hope to his fellow Ugandans and others around the world. “I want to show that you can do anything, regardless of where you come from or how far-fetched your dream may sound,” he says. “Maybe I make it to the Olympics. Maybe I’ve paved the way for someone else to pick up the torch. My motto is ‘Train strong, train well, give myself a chance.’ I’m just going to train and compete, and we’ll see where the cards lie. If I don’t make it to the Olympics, I’ll still be proud knowing how far I’ve come. For me, it’s the journey, not the destination.”
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ith his easy charm and upbeat spirit, David Osmond is a natural connector—through both his music and his innate talent for bringing people together. Take the way he met his wife.
While waiting for a flight on New Year’s Day, Osmond caught sight of beautiful, blond Valerie McClain on the dance floor at the Las Vegas Hard Rock Hotel. As the two made eye contact, she thought she recognized him. “Are you in my ward?” she asked. (A ward is a Latter-day Saint congregation similar in size to a Catholic parish.) “No, but I wish I were,” he replied.
The two talked for a while, and afterward, David asked for her phone number. She said no.
Later that night, she turned down his request a second time. With his trademark determination, he waited a bit and approached Valerie a third time. “Look, I don’t know if you’re with somebody, but I can’t leave here without your phone number,” David told her. “If you just say it, I’ll memorize it.”
He still knows the number by heart. “It took us three months to connect, but as soon as we did, it was game over,” he recalls.
A DEVASTATING DIAGNOSIS
David and Valerie had been dating for about five months when he faced a health crisis that seemed to come out of nowhere.
Singing in a 2005 Christmas Eve musical performance, David never imagined that he would experience a life-altering challenge later that night. After arriving home, he took off his shoes. “Something’s wrong here,” he told Valerie. He felt crushing pressure—as if a steamroller were running over his feet. Reasoning that he only slept two hours the night before, he hoped that the hurt would fade away. Yet as days—and then weeks— passed, the intense pain remained.
First, the pain moved up to his knees. Then it reached his waist and then his chest. “From the chest down, that crushing sensation I felt was everywhere,” he recalls. “My vision was like TV static. I could hardly move my hands.” Despite his pain, it took a while for him to realize how serious his condition was.
A doctor who x-rayed him diagnosed him with pinched nerves in his back. At first, David tried to remedy the condition with trips to the gym, but he kept tripping, and then falling. Then he used a cane. Within a matter of months, he was in a wheelchair. “I had paralysis to the point where I couldn’t even move my toes,” he says.
Ultimately, his sunny spirit and dedication kept him pushing forward in hopes of proceeding with his incredibly busy life. Preparing for a show where he would be the lead singer with his brothers, he traveled to Las Vegas with Valerie as his caregiver.
“I was stuck on a couch. I hid out from people,” David recalls. He told himself he would be fine even as he dragged himself across the floor. “They carried me up and put me at the back of the stage. They gave me a guitar that I faked playing.”
At the same time, he canceled some events, thinking, “I’ll just work through this with exercise.”
But the pain didn’t stop. Finally, a doctor told him, “This looks like multiple sclerosis.” Multiple sclerosis, meaning “many scars,” is a disease in which the immune system eats away at the protective covering of one’s nerves. The resulting nerve damage disrupts communication between the brain and the body. As a result, multiple sclerosis causes many different symptoms, including vision loss, pain, fatigue, and impaired coordination.
A FAMILY AFFAIR
David immediately knew what that term meant. His dad, Alan Osmond—founder of the famous Osmond Brothers singing group—has had his own multidecade battle with multiple sclerosis, or MS.
“In the ’90s, he started tripping and falling. He couldn’t do the things he wanted to, and it became dangerous for him to be on stage,” David recalls. “As his body started to slow down, he struggled.”
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But despite his struggles, Alan Osmond has taken to heart a phrase that David calls his dad’s “bumper sticker”: I may have MS, but MS does not have me. “He’s very positive and a total optimist,” David says. “He told me personally, ‘My body might have MS, but my spirit doesn’t, and it’s soaring.’”
David remembers when his dad received a call from a “trash” magazine before he retired from the stage. “They said, ‘Alan, we know that you have MS. You are going to do a story with us.’ They held that over him,” David says. So, Alan called his good friend Annette Funicello, who also had MS. As a famous actress familiar with the tabloids, she suggested that he come out with his story himself because “it would be a strength to other people.” So, he called Entertainment Tonight, and they produced a segment about him and his condition.
After his own diagnosis, David watched his brother and his brother’s kids playing together. Then he looked over at Valerie. By then, they wanted to marry and have a family. But could that still happen now?
A NEW GENERATION
Thoughts of a family brought warm memories to David’s mind. When he was a little boy, his house was filled with fun things to do and play with, including set pieces from the Donny & Marie television show. “At Christmas, we had all these awesome trees that we would decorate our house with. There was fun stuff in our basement—costumes and instruments,” he recalls.
When David was 2 years old, the basement was also where his father constructed a rehearsal hall. “He built it after he saw four of us singing together. We started doing harmony—picking out parts on our own.”
Seeing his sons’ natural tendency for music, Alan taught them four-part barbershop harmony, along with the same routines that he and his brothers had performed on The Andy Williams Show decades before. In the early ’80s, David became the lead singer of their quartet, The Osmond Boys, singing with his three brothers, Michael, Nathan, and Douglas. He was just 4 years old when they began performing full time. “We did talent shows, church groups, and neighborhood things,” he remembers.
Soon, Eugene Jelesnik invited the young quartet to perform on Talent Showcase, a TV show on the local television channel KSL. Word of their talent spread, and the boys caught the attention of one very prominent star: Bob Hope.
DAVID WITH IS FATHER, ALAN
DAVID IN HIS WHEELCHAIR
1986 THE OSMOND BOYS PERFORMING WITH BOB HOPE
Hope invited them to appear on his national Christmas special. After that, People, CBS This Morning, and Good Morning America all featured them, and their performance schedule was packed. The Osmond Boys later transformed into a boy band, The Osmonds 2nd Generation, and they toured with other bands like New Kids on the Block. David and his brothers signed with Epic, Sony, and Curb Records and began touring worldwide.
“We sang in other languages. I don’t speak Japanese, but I sing it,” says David, breaking into a brief rendition of a commercial his family made for Japan’s Sumitomo Bank. “I don’t know what I’m singing, but it sounds great.”
GROWING UP OSMOND
In the 1990s, David’s uncle Jimmy Osmond opened the Osmond Family Theater in Branson, Missouri, and David’s family soon followed.
“It was quite a new experience going from living near the Wasatch mountains to moving near the Ozark mountains,” says David. “It was nice to be able to work together. We could do what we loved without having to travel as much.”
Around age 12, David began to notice how different his upbringing was compared to his peers. “There were opportunities that I didn’t realize were unusual back then,” he says. “For a while, I assumed that every dad did show business.”
Growing up in a world of TV studios and tour buses, it became normal for the family to do two shows a day, six days a week. On breaks, they traveled internationally. And David attended a different high school every semester.
Then, at age 18, David was hired to replace his uncle Donny Osmond in the lead role as Joseph in
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A NEW TAKE ON LIFE
While Alan Osmond’s MS is the primary progressive variety, David’s is what is called the relapsing and remitting type. “It attacks and then goes dormant,” he explains. “It’s like a roller coaster and very unpredictable.”
David traveled to a facility in Mexico for treatment. When the doctor there observed his MS antibodies after several MRIs and a brain scan, he said, “Son, you have been through the war. This disease is aggressive, and the damage is significant.”
As a temporary solution to treat the advanced symptoms, doctors administered a steroid drug that halted his overactive immune system, which prevented the MS from attacking David’s brain. Simultaneously, David made dietary changes that included eating a raw food diet and adding supplements. After staying at the facility for a month, he lost 20 pounds. His toes started to move again, just a little bit. “I will never forget that moment when my toes finally moved again. It was amazing. I wish I could gift that experience to everyone,” he says.
Before a month passed, David could get out of his wheelchair and shuffle around with a cane. After the initial steroid wore off, he returned to his wheelchair, and to his neurologist with a hopeful request: “I would like to walk on my wedding day. Is that possible?”
The doctor prescribed therapy and warned that the medication would wear off again. But in 2007, David achieved a major victory. “I’ve been walking since our wedding day,” he says, smiling gratefully. “If you don’t believe in miracles, I hope you’ll believe in one today, because you are absolutely looking at one.”
DAVID & VALERIE ON THEIR WEDDING DAY
SMILING THROUGH THE PAIN
Back on his feet—literally—David was grateful to be able to pick up his guitar, to have his voice back, and to stand on a stage and perform music. “I’m able to pursue my dream again with so much more conviction and passion,” he says. But the MS is still there.
“I feel it every second of every day,” David says. “The pain all over me. The fact that I can ‘hide’ it as well as I can is miraculous though.”
But David is committed to not complaining because pain comes to everyone at different degrees and intensities. He’s grown to understand that while pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. “No matter our circumstances, we can’t ask, ‘Why did this happen to me?’ unless we also ask the same question about every moment of happiness and joy that comes into our lives,” he says.
Each step that David takes is a constant reminder to enjoy every single moment. Today, he sees the MS as a gift, one of the greatest things that ever happened to him, because of the perspective on life that he has acquired.
DAVID PERFORMING WITH HIS AUNT MARIE
David is blessed with a boatload of performance memories. He’s sung with incredible musicians such as Stevie Wonder, Steven Tyler, Chicago, and The Eagles. He’s also appeared in unique places, including singing in the Tokyo Dome with 70,000 screaming girls, being on stage at Wembley Stadium, singing for Oprah at Harpo Studios, and sharing a stage with Earth Wind and Fire at The Rose Bowl. He’s particularly fond of his time touring as Joseph and loves being the Emmy-nominated host of Wonderama, an interactive children’s variety TV show where kids have a chance to perform and show off their talents. He also hosts KUTV’s Fresh Living on CBS in Salt Lake City each week.
In addition to his television appearances, David’s days are packed with a plethora of projects. He performs with his aunt, Marie Osmond. He is the chief relationship officer at Tribehouse, an exclusive business program designed to build high-level relationships between Utah’s top business leaders. He also relishes his latest music project—an incredible Big Band, The Osmond Chapman Orchestra, partnering with award-winning bandleader and sax player Caleb Chapman. They create a show filled with a blend of pop, swing, Broadway, blues, American Standards, and rockabilly. And David supports MS charities, such as his recent appearance at the 28th Annual Race to Erase MS event in Los Angeles. “MS is a terrible way to meet great people,” he says.
David is also looking ahead to a bright future filled with opportunities to spend time with Valerie and their three kids: Saffron, age 12; Azalea, age 10; and Everest, age 6. “The days are fleeting, and I want to spend as much time with them as I can while they still think I’m kinda cool. Ha!” David laughs. “If I can be an example to them like my dad was for me, that is what I hope to do.”
Reflecting on his many roles, David says, “When you serve people and get outside yourself, the abundance mentality is there.” His secret? “Find those who bring you joy and surround yourself there.”
DAVID WITH CALEB CHAPMAN
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Utah Globus Relief, a humanitarian organization located in Salt Lake City, is improving healthcare and preventing waste by gathering surplus medical supplies and distributing them to charities throughout the United States and across the world.
Healing the World Through Healthcare
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Global humanitarian Shaimaa Alwassiti squared her shoulders and smoothed her dark hair before the medical staff directed her down the small corridors of the elderly Ecuadorian hospital.
As she visited with each patient, her heart ached. She’d come to Ecuador to see for herself how the medical equipment and wound-care dressings donated by her nonprofit organization were helping the people.
As the medical staff introduced her to the patients, Alwassiti noticed that many of them had skin diseases. Many were missing fingers. One of these patients presented her with some tiny toys. “For you and your hijos (children), gracias,” he said.
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As soon as she composed herself, Alwassiti returned to the hospital and threw the medical advisors’ caution aside. “I just started hugging everyone,” she says.
When Alwassiti returned to the United States, each of her three daughters placed one of the tiny toys on their Christmas tree. Now, they look forward to placing these special toys on the tree each year.
The little toys started another tradition. Every time Alwassiti visits a country for Globus Relief, she gets a small souvenir. Her office bookshelf is lined with these little mementos including a Russian nesting doll, a tiny wooden shoe from the Netherlands, and a small model of the Colosseum in Rome.
“They remind me of the project and people that we have served. It is so rewarding,” she says.
Alwassiti was born in Iraq, but as the daughter of an Iraqi general who worked with the United States military, she left the war-torn country when it was believed unsafe for her to stay. She and her U.S. Army husband relocated to Jordan for a few years. She’d lived a luxurious life in the Middle East. She was well off and had an armed escort who went everywhere with her until she attended school in the United Kingdom. Although she lived a privileged life, her parents taught her to love and look after other people.
In 2010, Alwassiti and her family moved from Jordan to the U.S. “When I came here, I wanted a change, to live a simpler life,” she says.
In 2012, she contacted an old friend who worked at Globus Relief. She volunteered, and after doing various things for them for a few weeks, they hired her. After eight years with Globus Relief, she was appointed as the president of the humanitarian division in September 2021.
FAST FACT
Globus Relief has salvaged more than 1 billion dollars in medical resources.
Improving Healthcare Around the World According to their website, Globus Relief is a medical resource humanitarian organization that partners with charities, corporations, and governments to improve healthcare across the world.
“I love this work because of the passion and the change that we can bring to someone’s life,” Alwassiti says. “I whine sometimes because I have long hours. I travel a lot to meet with sponsors and to see the impact that we are having in the world. Sometimes I get emotional because it is hard to see the people and their heartbreaking circumstances, but then little children approach me and they say, ‘Thank you so much. I’m okay,’ and it is worth it.”
One of Alwassiti’s favorite memories of how Globus has helped children is of a 2-year-old Haitian girl. The girl had digestive and bacteria issues because of poverty. She went to doctor after doctor, but they could not help her with their limited resources. Globus had access to some protein shakes and sent them.
“Eighteen months later, [the doctor] sent me her pictures. She was walking and running,” Alwassiti recalls. “Then the girl’s mother sent me a voicemail, and someone translated it for me. It was hard to understand because the woman was so emotional. She said, ‘I don’t know what to say, but you saved my girl.’”
Alwassiti carried the girl’s picture with her for quite some time. “I loved her,” she says. “She was such an adorable child and such motivation to me. She was beautiful and healthy from something so small that we were able to provide.”
Globus can help so much because they have collected surplus medical and pharmaceutical resources in addition to used and barely-damaged medical devices and equipment for many years, says CFO and board member Daniel Henrie, who has been with Globus Relief since 1997.
Over the years, Globus Relief has partnered with hundreds of different charities in more than 140 countries to help people get the healthcare they need.
“We have stable donors who continually donate to us,” Henrie explains. “They like what we do and how we do it. We help donors see how their surplus and recyclable resources can help the world. Why would you throw away something you can use? Why send something to a landfill when it can help someone else?”
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FAST FACT
With administrative and fundraising expenses below 1 percent, Globus Relief ensures that 99 percent of donations go directly to humanitarian programs.
Serving Millions of People When the donations arrive at Globus’s warehouse in Salt Lake City, a team sorts through each box to verify what is inside.
“It is super important because if we send a box that says it is gloves and it is actually gowns, then many times countries will deny the shipment saying that it doesn’t match the paperwork, and then those people are without those supplies,” Alwassiti explains.
After the donations are sorted, they go to the processing center to be entered into a special database. Once they are in the database, Alwassiti knows exactly what she has and can build shipping containers for each project, sending surgical, clinical, emergency, IVs, ortho, airway, and personal protection products all over the world.
“Everything that Globus Relief provides overseas or here in the States with our local partners touches thousands of lives a day and millions of people a year. The impact is amazing,” says Alwassiti. “We help people’s lives. We can help somebody from dying and prevent all these illnesses and suffering. This is what makes us so unique. It is the trigger for me to wake up in the morning and come to work.”
Henrie agrees. “Service is a symbiotic relationship. When you help others, they usually help you more. We help them with healthcare, but they teach us and remind us of what really matters,” he says.
Henrie has gone with Globus on missions to Romania and Mexico and has seen firsthand the impact on the people they serve. In Mexico, he recalls watching a kid with a stick rolling an old bicycle wheel while running down the road. He and his friends were laughing and having fun.
“I learned so much from him that day. He reminded me of what really matters,” Henrie says.
A Charity for Charities Helping people around the world has been the focus of Globus Relief, even in the beginning, says Kelly Lee Farmer, a former member of the board of directors.
“My parents, Kelly and Elaine Farmer, started a business that handled recovery supply chain issues (National Product Sales or NPS),” says Farmer. “Part of those issues was market failure. We were getting medical supplies and pharmaceuticals that got lost in the system. At the beginning, we were giving it all to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and doing well. Then we realized that there was a greater need, and we could have a broader reach if we used more charities. We started Globus Relief in an effort to be a charity for charities. That’s what we do.”
Farmer says his father was a “detail man,” and he felt that Globus was his greatest mission (besides being a husband and father). Even though he ran a million-dollar company, he was the type of man who would be out there doing the work with his employees.
“If there were people coming through the warehouse and it wasn’t clean, my father would sweep it. He wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty. He wore worn-out jeans and a dirty t-shirt, and he drove a beat-up old truck. He wanted to be known for serving others, not for his business,” says Farmer.
Everyday Miracles Kelly Farmer passed away on February 12, 2021, at 88 years old. While Farmer misses his father, he says one thing his father always said that will stick with him is that “miracles happen every day.”
“I’ve seen so many miracles in my life,” Farmer says. Back in 2005, NPS had a surplus of food that needed to be thrown away, but they decided to hold on to it for just a few days longer. That same week, Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana. They donated nine truckloads of food right away to feed the people there, and they continued to have the resources to do so for two years.
Farmer also feels a miracle happened in the summer of 2020, just after COVID-19 hit.
“There was a real need for PPE (personal protection equipment), and Globus had a lot of it,” Farmer recalls. “We partnered with ADRA, the Seventh Day Adventist group, and we were able to provide this gear to heavily hit areas in the U.S. and the Dominican Republic.”
Worldwide Partnerships ADRA is just one of the many charities that Globus Relief partners with. They also partner with charities such as Operation Smile, The Salvation Army, Christian Aid Ministries, International Rescue Committee, Free Wheelchair Mission, Mercy Foundation, Nepal Cleft and Burn Center, Baitulmaal, and Human Appeal.
In October 2021, Alwassiti worked with many charity partners in the Middle East to send 22 containers with 440 pallets of items to Jordan, Lebanon, and Palestine. The supplies serviced 5 cities with 20 hospitals and dozens more free clinics to help serve the poor people and refugees from Syria, Iraq, Libya, and Somalia.
“It was so exciting! I was so happy,” she recalls. “It got cleared because The Royal Palace in Jordan got involved. It is so touching. It stays with me.”
At the end of October, Alwassiti flew to Jordan to meet with The Royal Palace and to see the impact of the shipment sent to serve millions of people in need.
Inviting Others to Come to the Table Alwassiti is excited for the future of Globus Relief and has created a new strategic plan. She wants Globus to be able to see a health crisis in a country, fund the project, then gather and unite other charities to “come to the table and help.”
“I am a believer that the more you can bring to the table, the bigger the impact will be. The need is everywhere,” says Alwasitti. “We have a variety of partner groups in over 140 countries and add new ones every year. Some of the countries are just very hard to get into, so it can be challenging (especially with the shipping troubles due to COVID-19), but as we unite these partner groups, each one of them can supply us with a different type of service, and then we can supply a developed humanitarian program to respond to the health crisis of the world. I think it will be a great new way of doing things.”
To learn more, donate, or volunteer, visit globusrelief.org.
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