Issues → November/December 2007 → Features →
Angels Among Us: 5 New Englanders
Making a difference, one life at a time
by Carol Cambo
Their missions vary, but their goals are the same: Start small, think big. Follow the need wherever it leads.
Patricia Franchi Flaherty
Battle for Life
Founder, Ovations for the Cure
Every woman knows new shoes are a powerful kind of therapy. "They're good medicine," says Patti Franchi Flaherty. Her feet sparkle in a pair of mesh jelly flats, Stuart Weitzman originals.
Thanks to Patti's foundation, Ovations for the Cure, every ovarian cancer patient gets a free pair of the designer slippers through its "Happy Feet" program. Patti herself is one of those patients.
By the time Patti was diagnosed with stage 3C ovarian cancer in 1999, she had already lost her mother to the disease and two sisters to other cancers. During treatment, she realized that physicians had learned little more about ovarian cancer since her mother had died of it more than 30 years before. "I thought about how research money could alter its course, just as it has for breast cancer," says Patti.
When cancer returned two years ago, she realized it was time to fight back with every weapon she had, so she founded Ovations in honor of her mother, Madeline, who was 43 when she died -- Patti's age when she was diagnosed.
Patti is the general manager of her family's real estate firm, which has a long history of philanthropy in New England. She quickly tapped associates, friends, and relatives and forged partnerships to create programs -- such as McDonald's Teal at the Wheel drive-through fundraiser -- to promote awareness. She organized high-profile events, including star-studded golf tournaments and fashion shows with Neiman Marcus, and recruited hundreds of members for Team Ovations for the annual Boston Marathon Jimmy Fund Walk. Last year Ovations raised more than $800,000 for research, early detection, and awareness.
"We're smart women looking to buy good science," says Patti. Ovations sponsors research toward developing new treatments and preventions (including vaccines), technologies, and awareness programs.
"Ovations for the Cure is the first organization of its kind," says Ursula Matulonis, M.D., director of gynecological oncology at Boston's Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and a member of Ovations' board of directors. She's also Patti's doctor. "Most groups support a combination of advocacy and patient education," she notes, "but generally don't fund research directly." Matulonis is currently collaborating in the testing of PARP (poly-adenosine-diphosphate ribose polymerase) inhibitors against recurrent cancer, holding the promise of repairing DNA damage and of replacing chemotherapy in certain cases.
In a speech earlier this year, Patti shared the details of her disease publicly, with a large audience, for the first time. "One day I was living my life; the next, I had cancer. It's that quiet, that fast," she said.
"I want women to be armed with good information to make smart choices about their disease," Patti explains. "If I can prevent someone going through what I've gone through, that's success."
Learn more at: 866-920-6382, 508-655-5412; ovationsforthecure.org
In 2007, the National Institutes of Health recorded more than 22,000 new cases of ovarian cancer, and more than 15,000 deaths from it. It's been called "the silent killer" because its early symptoms are subtle. For women diagnosed in stage 1 of the disease, the cure rate is 90 percent, but most cases aren't diagnosed until the cancer has spread.
Gwen Fletcher and Dottie Volosin, Guilford, Connecticut
Volunteers, Charlie's Closet
Tours of historic Guilford usually take inthe town's numerous antique buildings. Gwen Fletcher and Dottie Volosin give a different kind of tour, a narrated medical life of their town: "A young man in that Cape cares for his mother and needed a hospital bed … We delivered a scooter there [pointing to a white Colonial]. The woman takes it all the way downtown! … We brought a wheelchair to the woman who lives in that house. She broke her foot at church …"
Gwen and Dottie will humbly tell you they're just drivers. These longtime volunteers for Charlie's Closet, part of an interfaith service organization, accept donations of used medical equipment and dispense it to those in need. They fetch, sort, and deliver a full gamut of rehabilitative aids, all donated: walkers, scooters, shower seats, canes, wheelchairs, commodes, hospital beds, and more.
Often, what's needed as much as the equipment is the simple human connection. On one recent call, Dottie pulled up in front of a brown ranch. Inside, an elderly wife accepted a shower chair for her husband. "He's got congestive heart failure," the woman began. Dottie listened while she adjusted the seat's height to fit the man. "People themselves may not know that they need to talk," she says. "There's relief in telling their story." The women sometimes serve as grief counselors; other times they linger to chat with elderly people or their caregivers. On their travels, they spread compassion and companionship along with the much-needed medical supplies.
Charlie's Closet has seen demand mushroom in recent years. As life expectancy increases, people want to remain in their homes with their families, but insurance policies don't always cover all equipment, "especially specialized rehabilitative items," Gwen explains. "Conditions tend to deteriorate more quickly than according to an insurance timeline."
"They actually anticipate what I need," says Peter Coppola, of Guilford. Diagnosed 20 years ago with muscular dystrophy, Coppola has retained mobility thanks to a succession of scooters and wheelchairs delivered by Gwen and Dottie.
Clients purchase each piece of equipment from the Closet for $1. Sometimes it's not returned; sometimes the "cost" is repaid tenfold. People give more money as their budgets allow, from a $5 bill or a $100 check to gifts-in-kind, which over the years have included handmade birdhouses, wreaths, and fudge.
Gwen and Dottie pride themselves on the wide variety of equipment they can deliver at a morning's notice. If they don't have a particular item, they'll work their connections to find it. In this regard, they believe they've enjoyed some divine intervention. "We had a client who had a brain-stem stroke," recalls Gwen. "He was completely incapacitated and needed a bed, a Hoyer lift, and a special mattress. We didn't have those things." A few days passed, and a call came from a group of nuns in the area, donating exactly the items needed. "It tells us we're not alone," chuckles Dottie. "We tend to have miraculously good timing."
Learn more at: 203-453-8359
Charlie's Closet began supplying medical equipment to Guilford, Connecticut-area residents almost a decade ago, using one 6-by-8-foot shed for storage. The clearinghouse quickly outgrew its home, and this summer finally moved to a roomy new complex -- a storage barn and distribution center, built with a $75,000 state grant.
Robert Chambers, Lebanon, New Hampshire
President, Bonnie CLAC
Robert Chambers was a used-car salesman when he witnessed colleagues high-fiving over a big bonus, money made at the expense of a low-income single mother. "The car was completely wrong for her, something she couldn't afford," recalls Robert. The industry preys on poor women, he notes. "After that, I decided to find a way to help."
With fellow auto salesman Leo Hamill, he founded Bonnie CLAC (Car Loans and Counseling), a nonprofit company that guarantees loans, in 2001. Backed by Bonnie CLAC, subprime buyers purchase new, gas-efficient cars at low interest rates. In the process, they repair their credit, and in many cases, their lives as well.
One recent client is Brandy Todd, 39, of Williamstown, Vermont. The single mother of three was driving a 16-year-old Subaru with 188,000 miles on it, and the repairs, she says, were "costing me an arm and a leg ... but I was afraid to take on a car payment." She was finishing up a bachelor's degree at the time. "I didn't think I could swing it," she recalls.
A Bonnie CLAC budget counselor helped Brandy compare the cost of repairs with a car payment. "Having someone look at my finances and tell me I could afford it was the affirmation I needed," she says. She kept the new car a secret from her kids; she says she'll never forget the looks on their faces when she pulled up to school and day care in her Toyota Sienna minivan: "They were so psyched. Everyone had enough room, and for their backpacks, too."
Robert, 63, once directed fundraising to build Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. He says this breadth of experience is key to Bonnie CLAC's success: He cuts across class lines and red tape, bringing lenders, borrowers, businesses, and grant monies to the table. "Everyone is treated with dignity," he adds.
A confluence of circumstances squeezes low-income buyers, Robert explains: They're steered toward older vehicles, which tend to have high maintenance, repair, and fuel costs; loans for older cars carry higher interest rates; saddled with poor credit, buyers are often charged usurious sums. "We've seen interest rates as high as 35 percent," he notes.
Since he personally guarantees each loan, Robert makes sure clients buy cars they can afford: He helps teach a required six-week course on financial fitness, covering topics such as balancing a checkbook and monthly budgeting. The course has evolved over the past six years. A new segment on how to cook tasty, healthful family meals on a budget is geared toward moms; women make up more than 70 percent of Bonnie CLAC's clientele.
Robert partners with local banks and dealerships for discount rates, he says, to "wring every nickel out of the car-buying budget." Clients pay an initial $65 fee to begin; later, an $800 consulting and guarantee fee is rolled into the financing package, so that the program can remain sustainable. Sustainability of another kind is also on Robert's agenda: Many Bonnie CLAC clients choose low-emissions models from Honda and Toyota. "The American ego is tied to transportation, but the system has disenfranchised low-income buyers," says Robert, as he squeezes his lanky frame into a mid-size Honda. "We can solve their problems while also helping to save the environment."
Learn more at: 866-455-2522, 603-727-7006; bonnieclac.org
Since 2001, Bonnie CLAC has guaranteed more than $13 million in car loans and helped nearly 1,000 people buy cars in New Hampshire and neighboring states. With funding from a recent grant, Bonnie CLAC will soon open offices in Maine, Vermont, and Massachusetts. Cofounder Robert Chambers aims to expand the organization nationwide and is in the process of lobbying for a federal earned-income tax credit for clients.
Rajiv Kumar, Providence, Rhode Island
Healthy Ambition
Chairman, Adopt a Doctor
When 24-year-old Rajiv Kumar shares his memories of Mali, his eyes light up and his hands fly: the locals' joyous spirit, the amazing music, feeling safe in the village, being treated like family. This West African nation is one of the world's poorest countries, ravaged by AIDS, and most citizens struggle to receive basic care. In 2006, Rajiv, then a second-year medical student, volunteered at an HIV clinic in the village of Sikoro, one of the poorest parts of the capital city of Bamako.
Educating villagers and distributing free antiretroviral drugs, Rajiv was there partly as an envoy of Adopt a Doctor, a Rhode Island-based nonprofit he has helped lead since 2004. Founded by Ray Rickman, a longtime Ocean State social activist, Adopt a Doctor aims to supplement local physicians' incomes directly, enabling them to sustain practices in their home countries. Without enough doctors to care for them, 35,000 children under the age of 5 die every day in developing nations from highly treatable diseases, such as pneumonia, diarrheic illnesses, and measles.
Now chairman of Adopt a Doctor, Rajiv says his experience of working conditions in the African countryside deepened his commitment. "When we'd get to the clinic each morning," he says, "there were sometimes up to 40 women patiently waiting for us, with their children." He saw how the doctors' stress levels were compounded by their low wages, leading to their widespread emigration. "There are more Ethiopian doctors in Chicago than in Ethiopia," he notes.
The concept is simple: Donors agree to pay $100 per year for seven years. The entire sum directly supplements a physician's monthly salary. In Mali, for example, a doctor might earn $50 a month, which doesn't go far if he or she is also paying $30 a month for housing. "In many cases," says Rajiv, "we're tripling, even quadrupling, a doctor's disposable income." In turn, each doctor signs an agreement to stay in the country for seven consecutive years.
So far, 16 doctors have been adopted, and a small endowment for the program has been set up. Rajiv is dogged in his fundraising efforts. "I'm giving people the opportunity to do good in the world and giving them my word I will help steward it," he says. "Most potential donors aren't as concerned with the actual dollar amount as with how much good it can do, how much value there is."
Learn more at:401-421-0606; adoptadoctor.org
Closer to home, Rajiv Kumar is also tackling America's biggest health challenge: obesity. Rajiv is the founder of Shape Up RI, a 16-week program that works with employers and health care providers to encourage participating team members to exercise and eat right. More than 7,000 people took the challenge this year and lost a total of 29,000 pounds. Rajiv is currently studying ways to bring the program to lower-income Rhode Islanders, as well as into schools across the state.
Adopt a Doctor has received funding from the Southeast Asian Student Association and the Howard Swearer Center at Brown University, the Dorm Association at the University of Rhode Island, and the 44-mile Run for Global Health, organized at the University of New England by medical student Dante Leven. Adopt a Doctor has received donations from 45 civic and business groups around New England and has raised funds at 12 public schools over the last three years.
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