Independent Animal Rescue of Durham

I have many friends who are animal lovers like myself.  I am not a dog person or a cat person. I love both.  I may lean toward kitties, but I would never turn my back on a dog in need.  So this blog is a special topic for me and for my friend Tiffany who suggested I write about the Independent Animal Rescue of Durham. 

I have to admit that I had never heard of IAR until Tiffany told me that is where she and her sister adopted their cats.  So I looked up IAR’s website, http://www.animalrescue.net/homepage and was pleasantly surprised at what I found.  Independent Animal Rescue of Durham is an organization 100% run by volunteers.  That means every penny raised goes to the programs IAR runs.  Those programs include a foster program, a community spay/neuter program, the Coalition to Unchain Dogs, a feral cat program, and a dog behavioral training program.  You can read in detail about these programs on the website. (http://www.animalrescue.net/programs)

The one that I want to focus on is the program that takes a lot of love to run: the foster program.  According to IAR’s website:

IAR rescues animals that are found as strays or originate from the local shelters that are in danger of euthanasia. We place these animals in loving foster homes and pay for all vet care and animal supplies. Once the animals are ready for adoption, we screen potential adopters and create a match so that the animal will be adopted into a loving forever home.

You can imagine the costs associated with this program.  IAR covers the costs for vet care and food and can also pay for other supplies needed for the pets such as bedding, toys, etc.  Often the foster parents will help reduce IAR’s costs by providing those items themselves.  The foster parents will care for the animals until they are adopted, which could take several months.  Some foster parents have gotten pretty creative in developing interest in their foster pets.  For example, Tiffany told me

We found out about IAR through UstreamTV, which was featuring a rescue kitten cam. We would watch all the time. IAR has a few foster moms that put up cams online live, and you can watch them play and sleep all day.  One foster mom cam was named Bosley and The Spice Girls.  They were so much fun to watch. And it turns out they were local. Well my sis and I had fun watching the girls so much. IAR then had adoption events at Petsmart in Durham and Stephanie went and visited them a couple of times. Sapphron and Bosley got adopted, but Nutmeg and Ginger had yet to get adopted, so we talked it over and decided we wanted to adopt them.

Tiffany described the adoption process as “pretty easy.”  The application is on the website.  Folks who want to adopt have to go through a screening process to make sure that they will provide good “forever homes” for the animals.  Tiffany also said, “The costs are pretty typical with other organizations and county shelters. They have most of their shots and are spade and micro-chipped, which is included in the cost, and if you get two pets, the price is discounted.” 

The kitties that Tiffany and Stephanie adopted were rescued from a Johnston County animal shelter.  Their names are Nutmeg and Ginger (hence the Spice Girls nickname).  They even had fans from their time on the kitten cam.  “When we first adopted them, some of their fans sent gifts and Petsmart gift certificates for toys for them. It was really nice of them.”  I’m sure those fans will be happy to know what a great home the Spice Girls found.  You can follow their exploits in their new home on Stef’s blog at http://kas3dot0.blogspot.com/.

As with all of my friends when choosing an organization to feature here, I asked Tiffany why she would suggest supporting the Independent Animal Rescue of Durham.  “They open their hearts and time to lost and abandoned animals - even from shelters to prevent from euthanizing animals. I feel they really care, and the foster moms are great to the animals.”

If you would like to learn more about volunteer opportunities with IAR of Durham, you can find all the information you need here: http://www.animalrescue.net/volunteer.

Again, if there is a charitable or volunteer organization in the Triangle area of North Carolina that you would like to see profiled on my blog, please let me know.

I hope you all have a safe and happy holiday season!

Hospice of Wake County

Recently while driving in my car and listening to a local radio station, I heard a commercial for Hospice of Wake County.  The commercial said that you could buy a brick for a donation of $150.  I didn’t think too much about it at the time. 

Then I asked my friends for a list of charitable and volunteer organizations they support.  Martie Todd Sirois told me that her singing group, The Oakwood Waits, is doing a benefit for Hospice of Wake County.  That benefit concert will happen this weekend.  Follow this link for more information: http://www.hospiceofwake.org/event.php?mode=viewEvent&eventID=114

Until now I did not know much about what hospice meant.  I’ve been lucky in that no one in my immediate family has required the care given there.  Had I thought much about it, my guess would have been that hospice must be covered by insurance of some sort.  Now that I’ve have been reading about what Hospice of Wake County does, I understand the need for a benefit concert and brick selling and all of the other fundraising events that take place throughout the year.  You see Hospice of Wake County has a philosophy:

“Every individual deserves the quality of life that he or she wants near life's end. Although we receive reimbursement from Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance, no family is ever denied care due to lack of a payor source.”

You can find this philosophy on its web page at http://www.hospiceofwake.org/pages/14/About-Us/.  You can find so much more information there as well.  For example, the building under construction right now will be the first free-standing hospice in Wake County.  The bricks will be placed in the gardens of that new facility, which will house a minimum of 20 private rooms with space for family member of patients to stay overnight, child-friendly areas, administrative offices, and a lending library with resource materials among other things.  The public dedication of the building will be held on January 9^th.  (See its calendar of events page for details.)

According to its website:

“[Hospice’s] professional staff and trained volunteers provide expert medical care and supportive services to more than 1,500 families each year. To help meet the complex needs of families, these services include: counseling support for families, short-term respite care, spiritual care and counseling, volunteer support, bereavement care, transitional home health care, palliative care, and end-of-life education.”

The amount of services associated with end-of-life care honestly surprised me.  Again, it’s not something that I think about.  Sure, I will occasionally hear a story about one aspect or another of that stage of life, but I have never tried to put it all together.  My guess is that most people have not either.  Most people.

It takes very special, dedicated, compassionate people to do hospice work whether that work is for pay or volunteer.  Every year more than 200 hundred volunteers donate hundreds of hours of their time to help families dealing with the loss of a loved one, struggling with end-of-life care, explaining what is going on to children, etc.  Volunteers are always needed.  You can find out more about how to volunteer here: http://www.hospiceofwake.org/pages/22/Volunteers-Opportunities/.

Returning to the reason that I decided to cover Hospice of Wake County this week – The Oakwood Waits benefit concert is on Saturday (December 13^th) and Martie is a member of the group.  I asked her a few questions about the event, and since she gave such great detailed answers, I won’t edit them at all.

Q. Why did the Oakwood Waits pick Hospice of Wake County for the benefit?  How much money do you hope to raise?

A. The Oakwood Waits, while a professional performing group, still believe in giving back to the community. Now in our 26th season, we perform a benefit concert every year for a worthy cause. Our cause of choice for the past few years has been Hospice of Wake County. Over the past three years, several of our members have lost a mother or father, and Hospice has played a huge role in bringing comfort to their families. Last year we raised over $2,500 for HOWC, and are setting our goal at AT LEAST $2,500. Given the state of our economy, we aren't expecting financial miracles, but every little bit helps. We will also be selling our CDs the night of the concert, and a portion of those proceeds will be given to Hospice as well. Admission to the concert is free, but we are suggesting a $15 minimum donation, and 100% of those proceeds will go directly to HOWC.

Q. Why do you personally think it’s a worthy cause?

A. I personally believe HOWC is a worthy cause because they are a non-profit organization, now in their 30th year of providing comfort to patients that are in the final stages of life, as well as their families, and they need donations to thrive. Hospice medical services are special because the concentration is on care -- not cure. HOWC's mission is to empower individuals, families and communities to embrace meaning at end of life. They provide services from counseling/support for families, to end of life education, and short-term respite care.

Hospice provides many benefits that aren't possible in a traditional health-care setting. Hospice means "I will journey with you." They enable people with terminal illnesses to make decisions about how and where they want to spend the rest of their lives. Hospice care focuses on the unique needs of patients by making them more comfortable - whether it's making sure they get to enjoy their favorite things, putting financial matters into order, or even funeral planning.

It is not possible for just one person or family member to meet all the needs of a seriously ill person. Hospice uses a team approach. They work with professionals and caregivers to make decisions for the good of the patient, and the family.

The benefit concert is:
Sunday, December 13th
7:30 p.m.
Pullen Memorial Baptist Church
1801 Hillsborough St.
Raleigh, NC 27605

our website is: www.oakwoodwaits.com

We have sung twice at the White House, are frequent entertainers at the Raleigh Executive Mansion, and have also been featured in "Our State" magazine, as well as on Deana Vassar's Sunday evening program, "Preview!" on WCPE Classical radio.

I want to thank Martie for taking the time to answer my questions.  I hope that the benefit concert is a success and exceeds the fundraising goal set this year despite the economy.

As always, I am open to suggestions for more Triangle Charities and Volunteer Organizations.  Please let me know if there is one that you’d like to see covered here.

The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation

Since writing my first blog for this series on charities and volunteer organizations, I put out a call to my friends asking what causes are close to their hearts.  Of the responses that I received, one that stood out was the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.  My friend Jim is very active with the Triangle/Eastern North Carolina Chapter based in Raleigh.  For that reason, I am going to cover them next.

If you go to their website, www.jdrftriangle.org, you will find a wealth of information about the local chapter’s activities, events and fundraisers as well as how to donate and volunteer.  From walks and runs to galas and golf classics, there are many ways to get involved.

From that site you can follow the link to the website for the national organization.  There you can learn how the money is being used for research and education.  The JDRF is the largest fundraising organization for research focused on finding a cure for Juvenile Diabetes (also known as type 1 diabetes) and its complications.  Last year they raised $156 million in funding for this research according to their 2008 annual report.  Also according to the information on the first page of this report:

Since its founding in 1970 by parents of children with type 1 diabetes, JDRF has awarded more than $1.3 billion to diabetes research, including more than $156 million in fiscal year 2008. In fiscal year 2008, the Foundation funded more than 1,000 centers; grants in laboratories, hospitals, and industry; and fellowships in 22 countries.

For those of you unfamiliar with what type 1 diabetes is, I will give a brief description.  Although it is referred to as “juvenile diabetes,” type 1 can occur at any age.  It happens when the pancreas produces little or no insulin.  While the cause is uncertain, it is believed that the body’s immune system starts destroying the cells that produce insulin.  For that reason, people with the disease must inject insulin several times daily.  Just the injection process can make for a difficult life.  What makes it worse for those people is the potential for complications that can be caused by type 1 diabetes including small blood vessel damage to the eyes and kidneys and heart disease among others.  

I spoke with Jim Chapin, a friend whose son Ryan has juvenile diabetes about how his family got involved with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, and I learned much more than I could have if I had done nothing more than view the organization’s website.

Like most parents, Jim and his wife Lorraine didn’t jump to a diagnosis of diabetes when their son first started showing symptoms of the disease.  In August of 2006, when Ryan was 3 years old, “he was potty trained… and a lot of the symptoms for type 1 are excessive thirst and frequent urination, sweating… after he had been potty trained, at night he would beg for water before bed.”  In an effort to avoid bed-wetting incidents they tried to say “no” to the water, but he was dying of thirst.  So they’d give him water and he would wet the bed.  They tried to break the cycle and stopped giving in to the requests for water, but he would still wake in the middle of the night and have accidents.  After a couple of weeks Jim and Lorraine looked up the problem and webmd and saw that diabetes could be the cause. 

Jim continued, “So we made a doctor’s appointment and took him and told them what was going on.  They took his blood sugar there and he was over 300.  For a normal person, we’re like 100, 80, 110, 120 - somewhere in that range.  So he was about 3 times as high as he should have been, and they were very serious at the time, ‘You gotta go.  Pack your bags.  You’re going to the hospital right now.  You gotta go.’ And that’s how we were introduced to diabetes.”

Jim pointed out to me that he considers his family lucky that they caught the disease so early.  Older children and teens often have symptoms present in much more dramatic ways including comas.  Jim tells me that in 2006, Wake County did not have a full time endocrinologist.  (I was shocked to hear that.)  There is one now.  At the time, the family’s only choice was to go to Duke.  Thankfully, he tells me “Wake County does now have a full-time endocrinologist. And Wake Med has ramped up their entire pediatrics clinic.”  Things have improved a great deal in the past few years for the better.

“There’s a huge population of type ones in the Triangle that for a long time were kind of like this subculture of… you know… with unknown problems and there wasn’t anybody out there helping you and you were just kind of like on your own.” 

Now Jim likens the JDRF network in the Triangle to a family that shares emails, has get-togethers and celebrates together.  “We’re all out there and every body shares stuff and ideas and tips.”  There is an enthusiasm in his voice when he talks about it. “It’s actually kind of fun,” he says.  “Ryan has a lot of buddies his age that goes through the same things he does.  It’s a good thing for him.”

There is a constant vigilance necessary as a parent of a child with juvenile diabetes.  Jim tells me that it is like having the disease himself as far as always needing to manage it for “kids who don’t know how to do it themselves and without it they die, or could die, or wind up in serious condition.” 

When asked why other people should donate, volunteer, or take part in a walk, Jim had an answer with a twist to it that I didn’t expect.  He told me “I think that JDRF is unique in that our mission is to frankly go out of business and search for a cure.  The goal one day is to have a cure and not exist in that capacity.”  The way to reach that goal is by doing the research that the JDRF is famous for worldwide.  The organization is also unique in that of the funds that they raise, over 85% go to the research that will lead to a cure and, until a cure is found, find ways to make living with type 1 diabetes easier.  All of the fundraising is done by volunteers, which are mostly made up of families living with the disease.  A third party company ranked JDRF nationally in the top 5 non-profits for efficiency for that reason.

I could honestly share much more from my conversation with Jim as well as personal stories of my own having had a few friends with juvenile diabetes, but I will conclude here.  I hope that this blog has opened a few eyes and inspired some involvement with this organization. 

As always, I am open to suggestions for more Triangle Charities and Volunteer Organizations.  Please let me know if there is one that you’d like to see covered here.

Triangle Charities and Volunteer Organizations

This is the first blog of what I hope will be a long series helping to promote charities and volunteer organizations around the Research Triangle region of North Carolina, which includes the cities of Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill.  This region is blessed with great schools, wonderful weather, and terrific people, but even here there is a need for help.

At least once per week I will highlight an organization whose work helps those around us who are in need.  Some of those organizations will be well known such as Catholic Charities, Habitat for Humanity, and the Food Bank of North Carolina.  Others will be new to many readers, but will still have the same lofty and attainable goal of helping those in need.  All of the organizations that I cover will not be charged for this coverage.  Getting the word out for these groups is my way of contributing when I have no money to donate.

Many of us are effected by the current economic situation, but all of us can do something to aid one another.  Even a kind smile in passing can brighten someone's day.  Sharing your time and talents will go a long way as well.  If you are fortunate enough to be able to donate money, I hope that you will do so.

Catholic Charities
The first organization that I'd like to highlight is Catholic Charities.  According to their page on the Diocese of Raleigh's website (http://www.dioceseofraleigh.org/how/social/):

Catholic Charities is a private, nonprofit, social service agency serving the people of Eastern North Carolina. For over 100 years we have continued a rich tradition of providing a wide range of services. All programs are available to individuals and families regardless of race, creed, religion, ability to pay through seven regional offices.

A prime example of its work is witnessed by Catholic Parish Outreach, which is administered by Catholic Charities, but supported by parishes in the Raleigh area. Parishioners have really stepped up to the plate by increasing their support over the past year. For example, the following is an excerpt from a story on the Diocese's website earlier this year:

Rick Miller-Haraway, Raleigh Regional Director of Catholic Charities, says the increased demand for food assistance is being met in several ways, most importantly the donation of 47 tons of food by parishioners in the Raleigh Deanery since July, 2008 in addition to cash donations of $35,000. Miller-Haraway says the parishes “have really stepped up and helped us respond to this demand.” 

Since the story ran, the unemployment rate in the region has continued to rise increasing the requests for aid from Catholic Charities.  This organization also does much more for the community than help provide food for the hungry.  If you would like more information on Catholic Charities please visit the website listed above.  Contact information can be found on that page.


A call for more organizations
If you have a charity or volunteer organization that you would like me to cover, please let me know.  I would be happy to interview a representative and highlight your good work here.  


Thanks for reading and please come back to see more of the good deeds people in our area are doing.  Get involved if you can.  It will make you feel good.