By Dr. Douglas Jackson

Delivering health and hope to the world. That’s a pretty tall order by anyone’s estimation, especially when working in developing nations that have HIV/AIDS rates in the double digits, extreme poverty that festers preventable diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis, and doctor-to-patient ratios as high as one to 50,000. But, delivering health and hope to the world has been the mission – and the reality – of Project C.U.R.E., the world’s largest distributor of donated medical goods and equipment to regions that need the help most.

By no means do I wish to imply that Project C.U.R.E. does this alone. What we’ve seen since my father started the organization in 1987, is that more and more U.S. healthcare manufacturers and providers are looking beyond their walls and their bottom line when making business decisions.

In 2003, Project C.U.R.E. delivered nearly 100 semi-truck loads of medical relief – everything from latex gloves to ultrasound machines – all provided by nearly 2,000 U.S. healthcare donors. That’s almost a 32 percent increase from the previous year.

In addition, with seed money from Lawson Software, Project C.U.R.E. opened our newest warehouse facility in Saint Paul, Minn. in January 2004. This warehouse – Project C.U.R.E.’s sixth nationwide – is open to collect donations from the hundreds of medical manufacturing and healthcare facilities in the Minneapolis/Saint Paul area. Lawson also has donated procurement software to help Project C.U.R.E. coordinate the literally millions of pieces of donated goods it receives each year.

There are some who believe donating to Project C.U.R.E. is not for their organization. We hear things like, "Our people have enough on their plate, we don’t have the capacity." Or, "The problem in developing nations is so big, what will our small donation do?"

On the issue of staff capacity, donating to Project C.U.R.E. actually relieves workloads for materials management staff. Donating to Project C.U.R.E. is an easy, cost-effective – and often tax-deductible – way to handle outdated or overstocked supplies and equipment. Furthermore, it makes financial sense. One of our affiliate hospitals in the Phoenix area recently reported that, by working with Project C.U.R.E., their costs surrounding disposal of overstock and excess materials were cut in half. In most cases, Project C.U.R.E. can coordinate pickup, delivery and paperwork surrounding the donation of items.

With regard to whether we can make a difference, consider one of our favorite stories:

One morning, a man was walking along the beach. The high tide had washed thousands of starfish onto the shore, and they were stranded in the morning sun. Ahead, the man spied a small boy. The boy was running along the beach, throwing starfish back into the ocean, one by one. The man approached the boy and said, "There are so many starfish here, surely you can’t save them all." Just then, the boy threw another starfish back into the safety of the water. He looked up at the man and said, "Well, I just made a world of difference to that one."