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ECO SPEAKS CLE
ECO SPEAKS CLE is where the eco-curious explore Northeast Ohio's unique and thriving environmental community. Each episode delivers thoughtful and informative interviews with local sustainability leaders and offers tips to help listeners connect, learn, and live with the community and planet in mind. ECO SPEAKS CLE is hosted by Diane Bickett and produced by her son-in-law, Greg Rotuno. Diane draws on experiences and relationships developed during her 31-year environmental career to showcase the impactful work shaping Cleveland's environmental future in a podcast that speaks to sustainability newcomers and masters alike.
ECO SPEAKS CLE
Behind the Scenes at MedWish International with Britta Latz
Medwish International in Cleveland, Ohio, has been making a world of difference since 1993 by recovering, repurposing, and redistributing surplus medical supplies around the globe. This urgently needed humanitarian aid also helps the environment by keeping life-saving resources out of landfills. In this episode, we speak with Executive Director Britta Latz about how Medwish has been bridging the gap between surplus and scarcity for 30 years with the support of an army of volunteers and the help of our northeast Ohio community.
Join us as we take you behind the scenes of MedWish International to learn how teams of volunteers sort, repackage, and distribute over 600,000 lbs. of medical supplies annually to 115 countries and those in need locally. The logistics involved with receiving and fulfilling supply requests from organizations worldwide are extensive. As Medwish marks its 30th anniversary, it celebrates the people in our community who make this life-saving work possible. Hear how individuals and healthcare facilities donate their surplus supplies instead of sending them to a landfill, the army of volunteers and aid workers who sort and redistribute the supplies, and the funders that keep this remarkable organization going. Hear how you might make a difference.
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Britta Latz, Executive Director, Medwish International
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You're listening to EcoSpeak CLE, where the EcoCurious explore the unique and thriving environmental community here in Northeast Ohio. My name is Diane Pickett and my producer is Greg Rotuno. Together we bring you inspiring stories from local sustainability leaders and invite you to connect, learn and live with our community and planet in mind. Hello friends, today I'm visiting Medwish International at their world headquarters right here in Cleveland on East 31st Street. I just finished my first volunteer shift sorting surplus medical supplies for shipments to parts of the world where they're urgently needed. Medwish has been making a world of difference since 1993 by recovering, repurposing and redistributing surplus medical supplies and equipment worldwide. This provides much needed humanitarian aid while promoting environmental stewardship by keeping these needed resources out of landfills. And speaking with us today is Executive Director of Medwish International, britta Lats. Welcome, britta. Hi everybody, thank you for joining us. I've been wanting to do this interview for a while now, so it's fortuitous that we connected recently and this is a very special year for Medwish right.
Speaker 2:It is. Yes, it's our 30th anniversary year, so we've been celebrating it for the last 11 months and we've got one more to go, that's awesome, and so tell us a little bit about what you do here.
Speaker 2:I am Medwish's Executive Director and I've been with the organization for about eight years. Medwish is a fantastic organization. Certainly I'm speaking as a biased representative, but what we do is we collect surplus medical supplies and equipment that are available right here in the United States 95% of it's coming from Ohio, so really northeast Ohio, in our region and then in turn we're making sure that it's good and viable and then we're distributing it to people in need, both internationally and also right here at home locally.
Speaker 1:So the surplus medical supplies are coming from hospitals, healthcare facilities.
Speaker 2:They come from all over. Really, when people come to visit, I always love to see that kind of aha moment of like wow, that really is a lot that you're talking about, because 600,000 pounds a year certainly sounds like a lot, but when you see it I think it has a much different impact for you. But really, when people ask, no two donations come through exactly the same. We really get donations from three main sources. So the first would be from individuals like you or me. Maybe you sprained your ankle 10 years ago and you've got crutches in your closet that you don't want anymore. Maybe a loved one was in hospice in your home and they've passed away. You don't know what to do with those supplies anymore. Or you had a surgery and you healed faster than the doctor's thought and you have extra wound care items and so you don't want all those gauze pads, so you donate those. The second main source would be from manufacturers. Maybe they've overproduced we all know how important branding is. Maybe they've changed their logo and they don't want to sell anything that has their old logo imprinted on it. Or maybe they made a typo on the packaging and so they're not wanting to sell that item, the way that it's currently packaged, so they're looking to donate it. All different types of reasons.
Speaker 2:The biggest source of our donations, though, would be from healthcare facilities. We are very fortunate, having 30 years of history here in Cleveland to be really supported by the many incredible healthcare networks that are right here in Cleveland, so the Cleveland Clinic, university Hospitals, metrohealth all donate to Medwish, in addition to many, many others. Every year, we work with over 100 different corporate locations. Last year was 175. And so this might be a doctor's office or a dental office, that's, you know, someone's retiring, or maybe they've gotten a new piece of equipment, you know, from the healthcare facilities themselves. Like I said, no two donations are the same, so when I first started at Medwish, you know, several years ago, we had all of the doctors, the stools that doctors sit on when you're being checked out, and I was asking, like, why do we have these? We had so many, and I was told that, you know, a local facility had made a mandate that doctor stools all had to have five wheels, not four.
Speaker 3:I don't know if the doctors were tipping over, but we happily received them.
Speaker 2:You know, a few years ago there was one of the local facilities that changed over their suture contract and so they donated all the suture from their old vendor because per their new contract they couldn't keep them on the shelves. It was being replaced with the new vendor's product, and so we happily took those and distributed them. But we also work with, you know, night nurses that you know. They know about Medwish and they're passionate about what we do. So after a patient's been discharged they'll go into a room and they'll pull out the items that are unused and haven't been touched and, per regulations, can't go back into inventory because they've already been billed to insurance. You know just kind of other kind of processes and procedures in place, and so hopefully they come to Medwish. So what we really like to say is you know, no two donations are exactly the same. We're just really thankful people know about us and want to donate.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, you've had 30 years to develop that great reputation and the medical system in this area just keeps growing and growing. So you probably have some people on staff that do nothing but reach out to those facilities. 600,000 pounds too. I mean, when I was sorting materials earlier, a lot of that's just lightweight plastics and tiny little syringes and it's just kind of amazing to me what we went through today and the variety of materials and tubing and oh my gosh, it was a little mind blowing for someone who's not in the medical field.
Speaker 1:And I asked one of the volunteers. I said you know, I feel a little fish out of water here and they're like you know, it's better that you're not in the medical industry sorting, because sometimes their terminology doesn't match up with our categories and stuff like that. So I had a nurse here helping me. So that was. That was super helpful. But I think I figured out. The thing I was best at was breaking down the boxes after they were empty. So that's important. So tell us about going back 30 years, the founding of MedWish. I kind of remember back at the time when I was working at the solid waste district when MedWish was founded, because we're all looking for places to develop that donation infrastructure. And then MedWish came along and your founder, dr Lee Ponsky correct, was a medical student at the time. Can you tell us about how this all came about?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I've had the privilege of hearing this story from him, but it's incredibly inspiring. I would encourage anybody to go onto our website to kind of watch our video of where it all began to hear him share about it, but MedWish was started, as you said, 30 years ago.
Speaker 2:Dr Ponsky, as a high school student, had worked as a scrub nurse and he knew from that experience that there were surplus supplies coming out of the OR that weren't being used and were therefore being thrown away. Knowing that he wanted to go into the medical field, he found a role as a surgical intern in Nigeria in the summer while still a student, and he spent the summer there and he has stories of how they were using fishing line as suture, they were using bread bags as exam gloves, they were taking surgical gloves and washing them and hanging them to dry because they didn't have enough to be able to have one per patient here. We would never think of anything like that, right, and he talks about how they had these incredible doctors and nurses and medical professionals, but they just were lacking the supplies that they needed and came up with some very innovative ways to get around it. But he has a really devastating story of a woman who unfortunately passed away after a car accident because they were lacking the connector to connect her to a breathing tube and a ventilator, and he shares that.
Speaker 2:He wasn't a doctor yet at that point. So he doesn't know, it's possible that she would have passed away anyways. But for him that was a huge moment, for him to realize, like we have those items here in the US, they're being thrown away, they're in excess, and here we don't have them to be able to save these lives. And so we started, very humbly but with a lot of passion. He came back to the US and was collecting supplies in his parents' garage. Eventually we moved into the basement of a bank. We really grew over the years and at this point now we have our own building in Midtown Cleveland and all 60,000 square feet of this warehouse is being used to really collect and distribute these supplies, to be able to meet those needs that Dr Ponsky saw 30 years ago.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's amazing. And some of your guiding principles connecting surplus with scarcity and meeting that humanitarian need across the world with an environmental consciousness, at the same time keeping all that good material out of landfill.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, absolutely. I mean when you look around our warehouse understanding that all of these supplies would otherwise go into landfills or would be collecting dust somewhere. But then you have these recipients who come in who are so excited to be able to have access to these supplies and to hear the feedback that we get from where we ship it, whether or not it's somebody who's got a wheelchair in our own community right here, or it's a hospital that's now outfitted with MedWish supplies. Understand that these items were repurposed. They could have otherwise been thrown away or just not used, but instead, thanks to our incredible volunteer force and everything that we do and all the people that we work with, these supplies are getting into the hands of people that need them Such a great model, is it being replicated anywhere across in other cities?
Speaker 2:So MedWish is a medical surplus recovery organization. We are not the only one, but there are not that many of us. We are part of the MedSurplus Alliance, which is a program of the Task Force for Global Health. We're an accredited MSRO through them, and so we have certain standards and certain accreditation processes that we do follow. So, for example, we don't ship any expired product to our recipients. We follow guidelines to make sure that we're providing only viable items. But we're the only one that's here in Cleveland, we're the only one in our region, but, like I said, there are others that are scattered but certainly would love to see more MedWishes someday, maybe out there, because we know that there are cities and there's regions that don't have a resource like us. And so what is happening to those products?
Speaker 1:Yeah, there could be one in every major city in Ohio. I think there should be.
Speaker 2:And we do, I will share. We do collect throughout Ohio, oh you do. Ok, we have a truck that will go to Columbus once a month.
Speaker 3:OK.
Speaker 2:We also venture out in different areas. So really Akron, Canton, Cleveland are pretty standard for us, but we do certainly go throughout the state within a drivable distance as well.
Speaker 1:It must be so fulfilling to lead such a purpose-driven organization. How did you get your start here? You mentioned you've been executive director for eight years.
Speaker 2:I've been on staff for eight years, eight years, ok, I'm executive director for two.
Speaker 2:But I actually got involved Medwish, initially as a volunteer. Ok, I wanted to go into the medical field, and that was the track that I was on in school and really started to kind of reconsider if that was the best path for me. But I knew I still wanted to do medical, humanitarian aid work, but didn't know how to do that if I wasn't a medical professional. And so I luckily knew somebody at the time that worked here a friend of mine's mom and she encouraged me to come to an internship. And so I came and volunteered for Medwish in the summer and I just fell in love with the organization and I kind of boob-ranged back a little bit while I was finishing up my studies but eventually came back to Cleveland and shortly thereafter I was able to join the staff and they've been stuck with me ever since Awesome.
Speaker 1:Well, your staff is all very warm and friendly and the 20 or so volunteers that were here this afternoon same. It seems like friendships are developing here among the volunteers and there's a lot of corporate volunteer programs. I believe some companies that will bring in crews once a week or once a month.
Speaker 2:Yeah, volunteers are critical to Medwish. Honestly, there are lifeblood. We would not be able to do what we do without volunteers. We're a small staff of 16. And 600,000 pounds of supplies cannot be sorted and inventoried and then distributed by 16 people. So we actually have around 2,000 to 3,000 volunteers a year who come through our doors. Some of them are regulars and they come through once a month, once a week, twice a week. Others will come with a school group or a corporate group or another association that they're part of and they'll come once a year, or maybe they'll come once and not return to us for a couple more years. But we love our volunteers and, as you obviously saw today, you don't have to be a medical professional to come volunteer here. There's so much you can learn from the packaging. We always have staff that are available and the more you come, the more you learn. It's really important to us that we are providing our recipients with exactly what it is that they're looking for.
Speaker 2:So, if it's OK with you, I'll backtrack to our overall process. Yes, please. So to receive supplies from MedWish, every organization that's requesting supplies from us must have a nonprofit backing here in the United States or a nonprofit sponsor. So internationally, that might be a rotary club, or it might be a major international organization like Save the Children, or it might be a university that has an exchange program with a specific clinic somewhere, and so that organization will serve as the sponsor and they will work with us and the organization, the clinic or the hospital on the ground to determine what their wish list is Once they've been vetted and approved by MedWish. And at that point, once they send us their wish list, they might be looking for one box of items or a 40-foot container.
Speaker 3:So it really varies.
Speaker 2:We, with that wish list, will then try to fulfill those needs to the best of our ability. We are based on a donated inventory, so certainly there are times that we don't have everything, but we try the best we can. And so once we receive that wish list from them, we go into our inventory to be able to identify what we have and then be able to fulfill that request. And for us to be able to do that, we have to have the items identified, we have to have them sorted, we have to have them boxed up, we have to have them inventoried, and that's where volunteers come in. And on the local front as well, it's a similar process. So you have to have a nonprofit or a social service agency acting as the sponsor.
Speaker 2:Right now we have a list of 250 different organizations.
Speaker 2:For the most part those are all right here in Northeast Ohio, but there are a couple that are across the US and they will submit wish lists for us to be able to support constituents that they serve. So it might be a homeless shelter, it might be a free clinic, or it might be a social worker at one of the local hospitals who needs a blood pressure cuff or a wheelchair or adult diapers for one of the people that they serve. So all of the wish lists look very different but, like I said, it's really important for us to have the items sorted and ready to go so that they can be distributed, and so our sorting process we start with the growth sort, which is what you did today. So all of these items are coming to Medwish, donated to us from all different places, whether or not someone came to the front door. Our truck picked it up from the hospital. It comes into Medwish. From there, volunteers are opening up these boxes. It's kind of a life's like a box of chocolates.
Speaker 3:You never even get.
Speaker 2:One box could be filled with all the same or similar items. Another box could be a whole huge mix of supplies.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what got very kind of overwhelming when you saw just probably 100 different items in one box and all mixed together.
Speaker 2:And that certainly happens. Yes, absolutely, and growth sort is very different than fine sort, so maybe, if you come back and you do fine sort, it will be a different experience. But yes, so, initially growth sorting, you're checking expiration dates and you're sorting into about 22 different health categories, like you said. So everything from diabetic supplies and wound care items to cardiac urology, you know, obgyn. The second stage of the sorting process, though, is taking those carts of that one category so if it was wound care, for example and then we break out all the like items together so it might be the two by two gauze, the neospor and the ACE bandages and then from there it can go into what we call our bin vintory, which is kind of our shopping space for supplies.
Speaker 2:So that if I was going on a medical mission trip and I wanted to come and fill up my bag because I was going to be you know, we were going to be working in a clinic that specifically treated children, and I wanted to go into the pediatric area to fill it up with what I needed, you know, I could find that just like if you were to go to the you know Walmart or Target in your neighborhood you wouldn't want to be diving through a whole bunch of bins to find what you needed.
Speaker 2:You'd want to be able to, you know, identify those specifically, and so that's really important for us to be able to have that that kind of sorting process. And so that's the second stage of our sorting kind of component of things. And then the third is, once we have a full bin of supplies, we can then box them up, because not everybody, you know, is just filling up a suitcase. We have some 40 foot containers that are going out, and a clinic doesn't need three catheters, they need 3000., and so we'll box up those items and volunteers will help us in this third stage to count, to check expiration dates and to be able to, you know, provide us with other information that can then go into our inventory system, so that way we can identify where those boxes are, we can track their expiration dates and we can pull them when a request comes through.
Speaker 1:Wow, this is amazingly complex.
Speaker 2:There are a lot of steps to it and it certainly is very fine tuned. It's been many years, you know, that we've been doing it in this way and it's certainly been this way since before I joined, but from my knowledge it took a little bit of time to get here. But it's definitely very well polished machine now. Yeah gotta love a good organizational system.
Speaker 1:So when you walk into Medwish, there's this cool map of the world in wood on the wall identifying all the countries that you've distributed materials to over the years, and that numbers up to 116 countries, which is super cool. How do you develop the relationships to get that material over there? Are you working with the aid agencies you mentioned earlier? Is that just been a process that's developed over time?
Speaker 2:Yes, so we have a wide network of organizations that we've worked with to distribute the supplies, you know, locally. Like I said, it's about 250, and it's nonprofits and social service agencies. Medwish launched our local giving efforts in 2018, so it's actually not that long that it's been a part of our operations. Medwish had you know, was receiving countless calls from people in the community to receive mobility aids and other things that they needed for their health, and we felt really compelled to be able to respond and to support the community.
Speaker 1:To develop the local need Exactly the local branch.
Speaker 2:And so we launched that program in 2018, you know, as a pilot after a really successful pilot. We had 12 partners. We were really excited after that first year and in 2019 we announced that it was going to be a full-fledged part of our operations. And nobody anticipated the pandemic to hit and very quickly we became a lead distributor of masks and PPE and things like that for frontline workers here in Cleveland, and so our network partners grew extensively, you know, off of those efforts and really, you know, since the pandemic we've been able to.
Speaker 2:You know, certainly we still distribute masks, enhance sanitizer and things like that, but we work with a lot of organizations that are supporting, you know, individual needs or hygiene supplies or things like that that are otherwise needed in the community, and just over the years we've been able to grow that network and a lot of it at this point is word of mouth. Our local giving program is actually entirely funded through philanthropic funds. There's no fees to receive supplies for our local efforts and so there's just a lot of or international efforts, right, internationally. We do have a fee for service just to keep our lights on and our doors open, but it's not representative of the value of the supplies that they're receiving. It's a bulk amount based on the quantity.
Speaker 2:So a 40-foot container, for example, is $8,500 flat, but you could fill that with hygiene supplies and moon care items, which might not cost that much, or you could fill it with OR tables, microscopes and you know items that certainly would have a much greater value In 2022, the average value of a 40-foot container that we shipped was about $200,000. So certainly $8,500 being a fraction of that. But locally, though, that's really how our kind of partner network grew. It's just been over the last couple of years. Just, you know, through all the incredible organizations that are supporting our communities, you know, having needs, that they're able to then come to Medwish and get free of charge to be able to support the populations they serve Internationally. We've been doing this for 30 years.
Speaker 2:You know our partners are far and wide across the world and all of them look a little bit different and we work with all the organizations individually, so they, like I said, they're all different in what they do. Some are short-term medical mission organizations that are going to be able to do pop-up clinics. Others are, you know, supporting hospitals and clinics that are long-term and standing. We've been supporting them for years. You know, as far as the growth and how that kind of network established. A lot of that is word of mouth and a lot of them are people and folks that we've been working with for decades. Now at this point, but to your point though, we've shipped to 115 countries, so really, you know very expansive. You know some countries we've shipped to once. Other countries we shipped to you know pretty regularly. For example, we work with some organizations that are supporting Honduras, and in the last year we've shipped out a thousand hospital beds to Honduras that are now being used through public health facilities throughout Honduras to be able to support the people there.
Speaker 1:How about Ukraine and, more recently, gaza? Are you able to ship there?
Speaker 2:Yes, so we've been working with recipient organizations that are supporting Ukraine for about two decades now, so we were able to mobilize very quickly, working with them about a year and a half ago now to be able or a little over a year and a half ago, to be able to, you know very quickly mobilize support there.
Speaker 2:To date we have shipped out over $5 million dollars worth of aid to Ukraine surrounding areas, and then we've also been able to be part of a couple different local efforts for Ukrainian populations that have relocated to the Cleveland area to be able to provide some support to those individuals as well. In terms of Israel and Gaza, we shipped a hand-carried shipment to Israel a couple of weeks ago, at the start of the current conflict, to a hospital that had an influx of patients due to trauma and they were in need of some, you know, excess wound care and trauma related items. We were able to ship a small hand-carried shipment there. For Gaza, we have not shipped there yet. There's just a lot of different complexities and different regulations in terms of getting supplies into Gaza.
Speaker 2:So we're, you know, definitely monitoring and assessing, in conversation with organizations that are on the ground and then are working there to best understand the needs. But, like I said, there's a lot of regulations and things to kind of unravel. For example, you know we've learned that there are some strict regulations on gifts in kind, which is what we send coming into Gaza from Egypt, and the items you know, in a lot of cases need to be procured there in Egypt, and so just a lot of different things like that. But we certainly are keeping a finger on the pulse. We are, you know, talking with organizations that are there on the ground to be able to best understand as things change and you know when is best and how Medwish can help.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh. So many things are juggling your mind all the time. It's it's. It's got to be overwhelming at times. As the leader of this organization, I'm sure you have a pretty strong board that supports you as well, and also your staff.
Speaker 2:We have an incredible organization of people who are just really passionate about helping people in need. So it's definitely one of the things that I love most about MedWish is meeting the people, and I always like to hear people's story of how they first got involved. So many people are just so inspiring, whether they have volunteered with MedWish over time and just really kind of fell in love with the organization, or they worked in a hospital and were collecting supplies for MedWish and didn't even really know us too well at that point, or went on a medical brigade with MedWish and have kind of stayed with us ever since.
Speaker 1:It's just a really cool community. Some of the women I met today were on a medical brigade, which is explain what that is.
Speaker 2:Yes, so MedWish has been conducting brigades for quite some time, but what we'll do is we will work with an organization one of our partners that's in a location in need.
Speaker 2:So this past summer we went to Honduras and also the Dominican Republic and we'll work with them to be able to identify a community or several communities that could utilize some extra care, and so we'll set up pop-up clinics and we'll provide free clinic care to anyone in the community who comes out. So I was on the Dominican Republic Brigade this past summer and we had a team of about 17 of us and we partnered with an organization that has a long-term kind of operation there, but not medical, but they worked to be able to help us to establish a relationship with a couple different medical organizations that were there on the ground who came out, and we set up a pop-up clinic in a church and for three days we provided free care to that community and it was just really incredible to be able to see the MedWish supplies at work, because we were using MedWish supplies there on the brigade and to be able to serve in that way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they said it was life-changing the two nurses that went with you To Dominican Republic.
Speaker 2:And you don't have to be a medical professional to go. I certainly am not, and we had a wide variety of different participants, everything from a high school student to people who are retirees, and we certainly, of course, we need the medical professionals to provide medical care. Nobody on the brigade is acting outside of their professional bounds. However we certainly do need people who can be doing line control and who can help pass out hygiene kits or reading glasses and things like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the one woman was a teacher. She said she just played with the kids.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's a huge role, because people do wait in line for quite some time and whole families will come out to be seen, and so being able to entertain the kids and keep them busy and active while their parents are waiting is really important.
Speaker 1:Okay, so let's talk about how people can support MedWish. First of all, if someone has a family member that dies, or whatever, they've got supplies, how do they? Do they have to make an appointment to drop off? What are the rules?
Speaker 2:for dropping off?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. Our warehouse is open Tuesday through Friday from 8am until 4.30pm. You are absolutely welcome to come drop off supplies. We do have guidelines on what we can take on our website, so I do encourage anybody who does have supplies just to check those out, and if you have any questions, please call us. If you are going to need, you know, assistance to be able to unload whatever it is that you're bringing. So if you're bringing a home health care bed or something like that, we do appreciate if you give us a call Just so that way we can make sure we have warehouse staff members who are available to assist, okay. But otherwise, though, we love people to come and drop off supplies and we really appreciate that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, get a tour of the warehouse and maybe become a volunteer.
Speaker 2:That would be great and you have volunteer shifts Tuesday through Friday, we have a morning shift and an afternoon shift, and then we also have them on Saturdays, just about the first and the third Saturday of the month, and we love for people to come out and volunteer. You have to be at least 13, but anyone 13 and above can come and we try to make it easy so you can register on our website and create a volunteer profile and you can register for whatever shifts best meet your schedule.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I found it very easy and your staff was very responsive in terms of, like, when to show up and what to wear and all that kind of stuff. How about monetary donations? Yes, please, as a nonprofit organization.
Speaker 2:we always appreciate philanthropic support in that way. You can certainly make a gift on our website, medwishorg. We have a lot of different campaigns and things like that that go throughout the year, so we just had GivingTuesday a couple days ago. So we would love, though, if you would check out our website. Follow us on social media. Any size gift makes a difference. Medwish operates off of everyone's generosity, and there's such a big impact that's made through our work that you know that your dollars are making a difference, so we just really appreciate anybody that would like to support us in any amount and in any capacity they can, in addition to general gifts. If you want to come and get involved in an event, we do have events throughout the year. Our biggest event is our Band-Aid Bash. We had it this past June at Forward in the Flats, and it was incredible.
Speaker 2:It looks like we'll be going back there this year, so keep an eye out for just save the date, but we would love for people to come out to the event. It's a super fun fundraiser. It's, like I said, our biggest event of the year, and then we do at times have smaller events, like tonight's our sip and sort that you're part of, so certainly follow us on socials to see how else you can get involved Awesome.
Speaker 1:Is there anything else you want to leave us with? Anything else you?
Speaker 2:want to add. You know, I think the biggest thing I always like to tell people is everyone can get involved with MedWish. Like their distance doesn't matter. If you can't donate financially, come volunteer. If you're far away and you can't be part of MedWish in a physical sense, help us to spread the word. Maybe you make a birthday campaign on Facebook to help to increase donations in that way. Maybe you want to join us on a brigade? Come and do that. Or if you work in a healthcare facility and you see supplies that are getting thrown away, you know connect with us.
Speaker 3:Yeah, speak about it.
Speaker 2:There's so many different ways to be part of our mission to make a difference with MedWish, and I'm not even actually mentioning I'm sorry for not mentioning earlier all of the recipient groups that we work with.
Speaker 2:If you're part of a group that goes to Nicaragua or Guatemala or Malawi or anywhere around the world, and you, you know the places where you're going, need medical supplies, and you're working with a healthcare organization that you know is giving you a wish list, contact MedWish, you know we would love to be able to talk with you and to learn more about what you're doing and see if we can, you know, meet some of those needs.
Speaker 2:We're in the local community here. If you know of somebody that's in need of support, you know, or a nonprofit that you know could utilize some additional support in the ways that we can offer, you know, please get them to connect it to MedWish. You know we we love for people to call us to find out more. We love when people come for tours. You know there's there's so many, like I said, so many different ways to get involved and it's really thanks to this incredible community that MedWish is where it is today. You know, 30 years later, it would be impossible for us to have gained the momentum that we have and to really be able to make such a big impact, if it wasn't for all the many, many hands that made this possible.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, and here we are in Cleveland, sort of the healthcare capital of the US, and such a supportive community to boot. At what better place for for MedWish to grow and thrive over the last 30 years? So thank you, Britta, for all you're doing and for helping all those people who desperately need help, thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for allowing me to join you.
Speaker 3:We hope you've enjoyed this episode of EcoSpeak CLE. You can find our full catalog of episodes on Spotify, apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes are available the first and third Tuesday of each month. Please follow EcoSpeak CLE on Facebook and Instagram and become part of the conversation. If you would like to send us feedback and suggestions, or if you'd like to become a sponsor of EcoSpeak CLE, you can email us at hello at ecospeakclecom. Stay tuned for more important and inspiring stories to come.
