Joining the team and searching for beds

Dear blog,
This is my first blog post ever! My virgin attempt to join the wave of the new media future! Thought I'd break the ice by filling you in on my recent activities this week related to this exciting new fund raising campaign. But wait - first I want to mention how excited I am to be part of this project. When I walked into the first advisory committee meeting on Feb 15th for 100 Beds for Haiti campaign I felt instantly a little tingle of excitement - all these unknown, bright, caring faces - who are these people that Judy has brought together under the auspices of actually being proactive in the face of such a profound humanitarian crises? Before that I was moping around the apartment, procrastinating writing my thesis (which is focused on empowerment and hand washing education in Haiti) and wracking my brain trying to make sense of the whole thing still weeks - months later. I wondered why I felt so powerless to do anything beyond sending money to my friends there and cultivating conversations about what made Haiti so vulnerable in the first place. At any rate, blogs are supposed to be short I think. So the invitation to join this campaign, once I met the organizers, was a total wake up call and I am really, truly thrilled to be part of this. Selfishly, I expect to learn, mostly from these other people on the campaign, and from this experience getting to watch (and participate in) a fund-raising initiative as it unfolds from the very moment of conception.

So to update on my latest task: As you may have noticed on our website, we have not posted any dollar amount attached to a single bed. This is because we're researching and negotiating ways to reduce the cost of our beds and of the shipment to Haiti. Working at Columbia Medical Center, I offered to do some phone inquiries to see if I could reach the person at Presbyterian Hospital who is in charge of buying beds. Its just the kind of thing I like to do: sifting through the sands of bureaucracy, patiently waiting as the receptionist bounces me from one department to the next, learning the right words to say like "procurement" and "capital purchase." Finally last week, after a full two weeks leaving messages with at least ten different people, I hear back from one of them who is my gateway/breakthrough - he gives me names of bed vendors they work with reps, contacts, and a reference to the guy at NY Presbyterian who managed the bed replacement scheme of hundreds of beds at the hospital recently. I have a feeling this guy is my "key informant" as we say in health promotion. He and I have been playing phone tag but I'm narrowing in. Will let you know, blog, stay tuned for more...