South GA Farmworker Health Project

I have a few heroes in my life. Top of the list is Jesus, then John and not too far down the line is Tom Himelick, Director of Community Projects at Emory University and Coordinator of the South GA Farmworker Health Project.

Tom contacted me a few years ago for soap donations (Beulah Land Soaps) to use to entice the shy women farm workers in for their health checkups at the Clinics. That was the start of a lasting friendship. Tom doesn’t just organize this project and send out health workers. He’s out there in the heat working with them. Tom’s son, who has had some serious medical problems himself this past year, is also out there, doing whatever is needed. Tom is passing down his heart to serve and love others.

Here’s the results of this year’s Farmworkers Health Project direct from Tom:

We had a very successful trip. It appears (unofficially yet) that we had over 1700 patient visits in the 12 days! Our previous “record” was 1594 last year. Even in our slower clinics we found single patients that made the whole clinic site worthwhile - people with serious issues that otherwise might not have had some attention.

The heat was horrible. Workers in the first week told us one evening about 6 of their co-workers passing out in the fields that day from the heat. I kept a student and several interpreter volunteers in one night as I was worried the heat was making them sick.

Here’s a newsclip about the Project and the South Georgia Farmworker Health Project website. Emory’s Physician Assistant website is excellent - make sure you visit the Community Service page.

Last year I closed down the soap business but Tom still keeps in touch with me. This Project touches my heart because I can still remember the farm worker family that lived down the road from us. I remember one of the few times my Mom got furious about someone being poorer than us. The dairy farmer who lived down the road paid the man $6.00 a week and gave him a ‘house’ to live in. He’d give him a piglet every year to grow out and he may have given him some of the milk from the dairy but I’m not positive on that. The ‘house’ was a two room shack that had a dirt floor and no electric, no water and no bath, of course. There were 7 children. Several of the kids slept in the shed which was in worse shape than the house. The piglet the farmer gave the worker was one of their most valuable assets - it would feed them later - so it was kept in the living room until it was old enough to go out in a yard pen.

If there’s any thing you can do to help or encourage the Farmworkers Health Project please feel free to contact them!

This entry was posted on July 1, 2009 at 03:03 pm and is filed under Homestead living. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.