My Inspiring Networking Weekend:Part 2--Thomas and Adriana Henderson


      
The second part of the series of Inspiring people!  This is an amazing couple who do great things, and I have to tell you about them.

Adriana was born in Romania, but when she was a child, Ceausescu was in power.  Her fther was imprisoned by Ceausescu for participating in anti-government, underground radio production.  When she was nineteen, her father's release was negotiated by Kissinger--yes, that Kissinger--but part of the agreement was that the family would never return to Romania on pain of death.  If you think about that, not much of a punishment at the time. 

She never intended to go back to Romania.  But after marrying Thomas Henderson and having a great life with him, she told him that she felt like she needed to go back to Romania.  Even after Ceausescu was gone, there was something missing in Romania.  And that's when, after Thomas had retired, Thomas and Adriana Henderson decided to go visit Romania. 

That's when they learned something very frightening about Romanian healthcare.  Sure Romania has socialized healthcare, but because of government corruption, you only get treatment that gets put on the list.  And it only gets put on the list if a member of the government has a familial connection to the disease. Hemophilia didn't make the list.

That's when Camp Ray of Hope was brought to life.  Armed with almost $150,000 worth of factor, they flew to Romania.  At the conference, there was a workshop called "When does your camp become a hospital?" talking about when you should say no to a camper's medical needs.  Well, their camp literally is a hospital.  I'm not kidding. They have volunteer medical staff who actually have done surgery.  They needed surgery, and they didn't want to do it without factor.

Today, Camp Ray of Hope is in its tenth year (and supplies more like $1.5 million worth of factor) and gives a special opportunity to all its campers.  Kids who couldn't walk, Thomas and Adriana pulled strings and found a way for them to get factor and physical therapy.  Kids who can't read, they teach.  Their family doesn't have a house, they'll find them one.  Thomas and Adriana still live in the United States, but she definitely didn't keep the not returning to Romania thing.  The amount of effort, time and money they dedicate to this is astronomical, as it the amount of dedication they give to finding donations for it.



Comments

Amy R said…
These are inspiring tributes. I am glad you are doing it. You might want to check your editing in the beginning of this post. I think there are a few typos.
January 28, 2015 at 3:18 AM
Hannah said…
Thanks, mom. And thanks for catching that. For some reason, when I first posted, it decided to rearrange sentences and kill off half of some sentences. I thought I'd caught them all, but I didn't.
January 28, 2015 at 4:53 PM
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