A reminder about happy hour at HeidiOptics (Thurs. April 10 @5:30pm). Wine $5, beer $3.
This is a fund raiser for a medical mission in Guatemala that Heidi and I will go on in May.
We will have light finger food, music, and a drawing for a gift card for 10 free car washes at South Side's Pgh LaserWash donated by Steve Todorovich.
HeidiOptics is @ 239 Fourth Ave 5th Floor (Investment Building) Pittsburgh, 15222. Email lcvanderwaag@gmail.com or call if you need directions 412-281-7022 (beware of mapquest, they will send you to Neville Island).
Donations of any size are welcome and completely voluntary. Checks can be made out to VOSH-PA. The $ that we raise will pay for cataract surgery (about $65/ eye in Guatemala) and specialty prescription glasses.
Those are the details for the happy hour, if you want to hear how this trip came to be, read on...it involves rowing (or at least this telling of it will, since this is the rowers' blog)
It all began back in 1994 when I was a newbie freshman at Georgetown University and I saw a rowing shell in the campus square. My roommate dragged me over to check it out "I've ALways wanted to TRY this." Until this point in my life I considered myself "not an athlete." I couldn't run fast, I lacked hand/eye coordination, and lets face it, to this day I'm pretty damned clumsy. The enthusiastic rowers assured me that I needed no prior experience or athletic talent, all I had to do was show up for practice (sounded easy.)
So they took us out in a barge like structure on the Potomac, and randomly pointed people to one side or the other (this is how I found that path in life known as starboard). You know, rowing is such a pretty sport, and it looks so cool in the pictures...so there were maybe 100 novices that first week. Then we switched to 5:30 am practices, and each day the number halved.
As the ranks thinned I met a fellow chemistry major Lynne. She lived in my dorm, so we ran to practice together. Lynne survived rowing through Christmas break of novice year, I finished the novice year out. This wasn't by conscious choice, I just kept showing up for practice. Each time the alarm went off I got out of bed by telling myself that this was the day that I was going to quit and that tomorrow I would sleep in. Somehow I always forgot about that promise until the next morning.
Lynne became a favorite study partner because she is incredibly smart, and really nice, and had a way of explaining general chemistry in a way that made sense. Fast forward several years, Lynne and I are graduating, she is moving to North Carolina for medical school and a masters in public health, and I am on my way to optometry school in Philly. We kept in touch. She lived in Australia, and Malaysia and who knows where else, I moved to Pittsburgh.
Last June she came to visit right after she returned from a medical mission in Guatemala. Her group brings nurses, dentists, surgeons, anesthesiologists, nutritionists, physical therapists, but the one thing that the people always asked for was help with their eye problems. This is how I became involved.
This is a unique trip for me. Although Lynne's group has arranged the clinic site and dates and publicity, I am responsible for the logistics and funds for my entire part of the clinic. Luckily I'm able to share that responsibility, since Heidi offered to come with me and donate her optical skills, and I've recruited another optometrist. I'm also incredibly lucky to have the amazing support system of the masters rowers! Many of you have already donated money and glasses to recycle, thank you. Hope to see you at the happy hour.
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