Email from The Good Shepherd Clinic

Here are portions of an email I recieved from Christina Maile of the Good Shepherd Clinic. To see the video we shot there click here. Doctors and residents pay close attention. She is looking for some good doctors to come on medical missions.

"I watched the clip that you put up about the Good Shepherd Clinic the other day; I didn't realize that you had that up already!.. It's great! ...

"Here's what's happening at the clinic: ...we will have visiting doctors coming down from the states to staff the clinic. Now we just have to find some doctors! My hope is to find a few doctors who would be interested in bringing their residents down for a month or two at a time every year. It would be a great experience for them and it would obviously be a great asset to the clinic. We already have one doctor who is interested, but need to find quite a few more. So please keep me updated on your documentaries; I think it could be a great way to raise some interest in the clinic from doctors and others. At the moment I'm at a bit of a loss as to where to look for volunteer doctors, but I'm sure something will work out."

An Encouraging Email from a Physician

Here is an encouraging email from a physician who is also a published author. He is interested in creating a television show for medical missions.

"I am not sure how I found your web site at La Mancha Media, I watched your videos and I greatly admire your work. I find we have several things in common. I am from the emergency room physician from the Tipp City, Ohio and have a great deal of international medical experience especially in the Caribbean having practiced in Jamaica, Dominican Republic, St. Lucia, Australia, Bermuda, St. Thomas, Bahamas, St. Croix, Cameroon and Belize. I recognize many of the places you were in Belize. I was there for two months a couple of years ago volunteering at a clinic in the Punta Gorda in the Toledo District in southern Belize. I was there with my wife and five children. I just returned from there again, I took 15 high school students to help build a school for a Jesuit priest that is a friend of mine. I have also taught medical students in Japan and Mexico. I have recently published a book titled ‘Caring for the World: An International: A Guidebook to Global Health Opportunities’. It was published by the University Press and is available at Amazon Book. I have come up with a pitch for a television show but not being in the business I have not been able to find any one to listen to the idea. I see the show to promote great organizations and individuals doing great things around the world, very similar to the videos you do for free for these nonprofit organizations."

Joshua Bell in the DC Metro Subway

Here is a fantastic article (and video) and it relates to the goal of LMM: to highlight others who have given up their comfortable life to serve others. These folks are often cast aside as not important anymore to us here in the U.S. We want to see flash and modernity, substance is not that important, its all about the style. Joshua Bell is one of the best violinist's in the world but for a social experiment decided to play incognito as a homeless man in a DC Metro station. He played some of the most complicated music ever composed by Beethoven and others on a 3.5 million dollar Stradivarius. Who noticed? Hardly a soul. He earned about $32 from people dropping change in his hat and walking on; this is a guy who gets $100 per seat when he plays professionally. Several children noticed, but their mothers quickly pulled them away, as to not get to close to a homeless man.

Here is the Pulitzer Prize winning article and included is a small video.

"If you don't do the right thing, the clinic will suffer": LMM works?

A strange thing happened the other day which at first made me mad, but that I see positively now. Someone I do not know, nor had any contact with, viewed the video "The Good Shepherd Clinic" (this video is getting a lot of hits just in the past week, being discovered and emailed around some 3 months after it was posted), and was so motivated after watching it, decided to donate a fair amount of money to that charity. This someone, a woman whose name will remain anonymous, clicked on the Donate button on the LMM website where she saw the video. The Good Shepherd Clinic has no website or any way to donate online directly (I only have a address for people to send to). She thought she was giving the money to the Good Shepherd Clinic. Five minutes after she completed the donation she realized she had made a mistake. Within seconds she promptly sent an email and phoned our office line, and asked for a refund, saying she made a mistake. At the end of the email she said "please do the right thing" in returning the money, and if you don't "the clinic will suffer". This made me mad since myself and others had donated a lot of time and money to making this video possible for people just like her to help the clinic, and she was thinking she had to appeal to my conscience to return money to her she mistakenly sent to me, never even giving me a chance without a little lecture, as if I had done something wrong.

Of course I sent the full refund immediately to her and was quite upset for a little while, thinking that people seem to be ungrateful for the work we do. She would have never seen the Clinic by video if not for LMM. Now she is motivated to give to the clinic because of it. It was as if LMM was somehow in the way.

But after a day of reflection I see this incident as a positive sign that in fact LMM is doing what its supposed to be doing. It is giving these small charities a venue, a marketing tool on the internet, so that others can see with their own eyes what is going on there; rather then pictures and text, they see in full HD what is happening, and they are motivated by the videos to give. They are not motivated to give to LMM. The whole point is to help the charities get donations, not LMM. LMM is irrelevant to the viewer. And it should be.

So to me, and to those of you out there wondering how it is LMM is helping anybody by making videos, here is some proof for you.

Of course LMM needs money. But it needs it from people who see the value in marketing and self reliance. People that see they are giving a indirect gift to the charity to help that charity help itself in raising money. To people that see the value of putting the charity and the viewer together and drawing an emotional attachment between the two, such that they will want to give.

A Thank You to LMM Donors

LMM has recieved a few generous, unsolicited, and very unexpected donations recently:

1. The Triad Foundation in Ithaca, New York: $1600
2. David Leong (father of Kristin Leong of the Rivers video), Rio Rancho, New Mexico: $400
3. Isabella Corina, Ithaca, New York: $100
4. Various other donors that wish to remain anonymous.

I personally want to thank all of you very much. You are helping these charities in which we film tremendously. Your giving is an indirect way to help them. Your money does not go directly to the poor, orphans, etc., but it goes to the production of a video, a tool, that each charity can use free of charge to help in their own fundraising efforts. So thank you from LMM and thank you from the charities in which we film.

Sincerely,

David Whalen
Director, LMM

Families Into Homes Partnership

Here is the Families Into Homes Partnership located in Benque Viejo Del Carmen, Belize, near the Guatemalan border. They build houses for those in need and give them no interest loans to pay back allowing them to avoid the ravages of high interest rates that are common in Belize. See their brand new website here (video up soon).


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Music by Bertjerred "ooh nice" Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial 3.0.

bertjerred / CC BY-NC 3.0

The Belize Emergency Response Team

Here is the Belize Emergency Response Team (BERT) (www.bertbelize.org) located in Belize City. They serve the entire country of Belize, rapidly flying to all outposts in Belize that roads inadaquately serve, picking up the sick, and flying them back to Belize City, where is located the only hospital in the country. They are a private company, a non profit, not funded by the government, other then a stipend. A U.S. tax deductible gift can be made to BERT through the Wagner Foundation, 1657 Church St, Lyons, WI 53148, T:262-763-2017. Please contact John Woods if you would like to assist BERT at john@cisco.com.bz.


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