More on FHSSA...

My dad had suggested this trip around August, and it seemed as far-fetched as our dream of motorcycling around the Mediterranean.  By October I knew he was serious, as he had purchased guide books and researched how to do a trip of this length, unsupported. Also by October, his father was given 3 months to live, which has made for an emotional year in our family.

Over Christmas, Dave and I began discussing the idea of raising funds for a charity.  Since our family had recently seen the compassionate benefits of palliative care with the loss of Dave's brother, Larry, as well as the newly-opened discussions with his parents about their end of life care, we used this as a springboard.

When we stumbled across the FHSSA online (which began as the Foundation for Hospices in Sub-Saharan Africa), we read through their goals, talked it over briefly, and knew it was something we wanted to support. They strive to form alliances between programs stateside to hospices in Africa that focus on community health services specific to end of life care. The FHSSA Impact Fund was developed by their affiliate, the National Hospice Foundation, to raise funds to support the programs of FHSSA.

Our experiences with hospice programs here in Washington have been excellent, and it's a topic that doesn't receive a lot of discussion day to day (at least among my friends). The severity of need in Sub-Saharan Africa, specific to end of life care, hardly needs mentioning.

We also liked the idea that a portion of the funds go on to pay for bicycles that can become integral in the delivery of palliative care in remote areas. I guess the bicycle part was the deal-breaker, because there's a myriad of funds worth supporting, but this one seemed personal on few levels.

My grandfather, Ev, is currently being assisted daily through an excellent hospice program in Spokane, and his wife of 70 years, Liz, has been using her lifelong career as a nurse to its fullest potential with him.  While he has outlived the initial prognosis of three months, his recent days have not been easy. Ev and Liz served as medical missionaries for the majority of their careers (as a doctor and nurse, respectively) in under-served populations in South America, the Middle East, and Africa. It's hard to summarize their lives, so I will likely introduce them better in another post.

If you you're interested in other funds specific to Africa such as the one we found, take a look at aidforafrica.org, which is collaborative in nature and appears to ensure our money is going into well-organized programs. 

A donation page will be created on the FHSSA website, specific to our trip, and it will allow us to 'track our progress' on donations. Also, it keeps all of the tax-deductible hoopla out of our hands (their tax code is on the site).