Since the official founding of Project Embrace in 2017, we’ve been on 10 donation campaigns and served over 1,600 patients, with more in store for the future. Scroll below to learn what we’re doing to Give Global Good.
Four Corners Campaign (Summer 2022)
During June, we traveled back to the Navajo Reservation to follow up with many of the community partners we worked with earlier that year. We were able to bring even more durable medical equipment and menstrual hygiene products. After Arizona, we traveled North of Albuquerque, NM to deliver some medical supplies with a new community partner, the Picuris Pueblo.
Navajo Reservation (Winter 2022)
During the first of January 2022, our team headed worked on the ground of the Navajo Reservation with 6 community partners to deliver 339 medical devices and 1000+ feminine hygiene and menstrual products to a variety of settings including, but not limited to, domestic violence shelters, private clinical settings, community centers, and hospital settings. We’re excited to report that this has been our largest campaign to date. We are proud to have worked directly with members and leaders of the Navajo community who are continuing to provide essential services to the greater reservation while combatting the Omicron variant.
Seattle, Washington (Spring 2021)
In May of 2021, our team set off to Seattle, WA to work with six community partners who serve the unsheltered, at-risk women, and primarily Asian senior citizens. While working with these community partners, we donated over 100 medical devices and four large boxes of assorted feminine hygiene products. We had the pleasure of working with Seattle Mobile Medical Care, Downtown Emergency Service Center, Downtown Public Health Center, Low Income Housing Institute, International Community Health Services, and Union Gospel Mission.
Navajo Reservation (Fall 2020)
After raising $13,847 from our community outreach and fundraising efforts over the course of 1 month, our team set out for the Navajo reservation. We were able to donate roughly $35,000 worth of materials to 6 different distribution partners, all of whom work with indigenous veterans, senior citizens, and the unsheltered within the community. That $35,000 breaks down into 290 medical devices, 1,444 feminine hygiene products, and 250 toys for children. We’re proud to report that this campaign has pushed our total number of patients serviced globally to over 1,000 since our establishment in late 2017.
Navajo Reservation (Summer 2020)
Just like everyone else in the world, we struggled to navigate running our operation while COVID-19 began ravaging the norms of our lives. Given the information that our CDC collected, we knew we could safely organize and distribute medical devices to a community in need. We were researching communities that were struck hard by the virus and found that a community in our own state was actually being hit harder than any other demographic in our country, The Navajo Nation in the southeastern tip of Utah. Due to the COVID dangers, instead of staying in a hotel (like we usually do), we set up camp in Blanding, Utah.
We were aware that the medical devices we distributed would not directly help them with their struggles related to the coronavirus, but we knew this could alleviate the costs of their medical clinics and their people who could allocate their money elsewhere towards treatments that more directly deal with COVID-19. We donated a total of 110 devices, accumulating up to $5,899 worth of medical devices, consisting of canes, crutches, wheelchairs, commodes, shower benches, splints, and all sorts of braces.
The interactions we were lucky enough to have with some of the people working the clinics, were incredibly insightful. One of the people we met was a man named Will, who worked at a medical clinic on Navajo land. He was telling us how people were saying, “don’t worry, nobody comes through to your land, how could you get it?” and how “it’s no big deal!”. They found out firsthand that it is a very big deal. We are planning on going back with more than just medical devices this winter. With grant funding and personal donations, we are going to show up with water, food, toilet paper, PPE, sanitation equipment, among others that could directly help alleviate the problems they face in regards to COVID-19.
Tijuana, Mexico + San Diego, CA (Fall 2019)
In Fall of 2019, our team ventured to San Diego, California, as well as Rosarito, Mexico and Tijuana, Mexico to deliver medical devices to undocumented patients in low health resource settings. We had the pleasure of donating more than 100 medical devices, working with more than 50 health clinic volunteers, and forming partnerships with several incredible community partners. We were able to accomplish our mission of providing medical devices to underserved populations with the help of such community partners as the Refugee Health Alliance, the Flying Samaritans, and the La Maestra Community Health Centers.
Navajo Reservation (Spring 2019)
In May of 2019, Project Embrace sent a small team down to Monument Valley and Montezuma Creek to donate medical devices to Active Re-Entry, an organization that provides individuals with medical devices. The Active Re-Entry located in San Juan County, which primarily serves the Navajo population, had low inventory of these medical devices.
The team left at 3:00am on Friday, the 17th of May, and arrived to meet with a representative of the Active Re-Entry site located in Montezuma Creek by midday. They dropped off 80 medical devices worth $2,553. The trio then proceeded further down south to Monument Valley to take part in a clinic provided by the Moran Eye Center. It was an opportunity to interact with the local Navajo Community, as well as healthcare professionals and volunteers who serve the community through free healthcare services.
By interviewing one of our community partners, we gained a deeper understanding of the demographic she and her organization typically serve, as well as personal anecdotes of the struggle a family may have without access to the medical equipment that Project Embrace provides. We continue to work with these community partners in order to increase accessibility to medical care for those in the Navajo Nation.
Navajo Reservation (Fall 2018)
We partnered with The John A. Moran Eye Center, Utah Navajo Health System, Inc., and Active Re-Entry Independent Living Programs to help run a pop-up ophthalmology clinic as well as donate two dozen medical devices to supply local clinics.
Hyderabad, India (Winter 2017)
Project Embrace worked with the Vegesna Foundation, a nongovernmental rehabilitation center and school which currently serves over 250 children.