Other organizations that our community has supported:
Healthy Hearts for the Roanoke Filipino Community
Almost Sisters
Sara Bahraini Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine Before, you were a story: a stack of pictures and letters that gathered, growing up. You were my father’s smiles, his early morning long-distance phone calls, his late brother’s face in a little girl. Now we sit in this space; our grandmother’s bed, together, a bowl of tangerines between us. You are real. We smile at each other in silence, each without a sister, feeding one another. The peels gather, curled in piles, like your letters on my father’s desk.
Poems in the Waiting Room Sara Bahraini (M4) won the 1st Annual VTC Poetry Competition winners last year; her poem (left) is featured at Carilion Clinic in Volume 1 of their “Poems in the Waiting Room” brochure series for guests of the hospital.
In February, the Philippine-American Association of the Roanoke Valley (PAARV) invited VTC and JCHS to participate in the first-ever health event sponsored by the cultural club. Cardiology fellow Dr. Geoffrey Jao presented a keynote lecture, and the evening proved to be a success with a healthy-food potluck and after-dinner Zumba dancing!
The desert sun splashes over the room through the scratched glass, and the citrus vapors wade in the warmth. I watch as your scarf falls onto your shoulders, reaching over to deliver the next slice. We have the same hair, you know. We have the same hair, after all.
Find more outreach opportunities online at: http://tinyurl.com/vtc-calendar
Many thanks to Dr. Brian Watson for connecting us with his wife, Trish Fernandez-Watson, current President of PAARV.