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VIENNA – One person’s trash, well, really is Kathleen Price’s treasure.
What others may see as surplus destined to be disposed of in a landfill, Price sees as collectible items that can do some good in places like Guatemala and other poor nations. So, pretty much every day she spends some time on the telephone making what she says are ”calls of compassion” for the organization she founded, Mission of Love, to collect those items that might have otherwise been tossed in the trash.
”We as a Mission of Love can literally build a community with our surplus supplies,” Price said.
The latest effort for the Austintown-based organization flew out Monday from the Youngstown Air Reserve Station, where reservists with the 910th Airlift Wing’s 76th Aerial Port Squadron have been preparing the cargo for its flight to the impoverished Central American country.
The figures for the donation are remarkable: 14 pallets containing 62,000 pounds of humanitarian supplies, flown more than 2,700 miles to Guatemala on a C-17, a colossal plane that stretches nearly 175 feet.
The shipment contains medical and educational supplies that Mission of Love volunteers in Guatemala will receive and distribute to Metropolitan Hospital in Guatemala City and Way-bi, which means ”House of Dreams,” a hospice for children in Tecpan that Mission of Love helped build.
”There are so many hands and hearts that are making this mission of mercy possible,” Price said.
The Mission of Love transports the items through the Denton Program, which lets private U.S. citizens and organizations use space available on U.S. military cargo planes to transport humanitarian goods. Price says the organization is the large user of the program in the world. The next trip should include a school bus, ambulance and four pallets of goods that could not be sent on Monday.
Senior Master Sgt. Kevin Massie, superintendent of the 76th Aerial Port Squadron, said about four cargo trips a year are made from the air reserve station through the federal program.
”It’s awesome, we always look forward to these,” Massie said. ”We do several a year and it’s a good time. Especially seeing Kathy Price from a Mission of Love. There are not too many people in this area that put in the time that she does for a good cause.”
The training experience for squadron members, Massie said, is ”huge” because the reserve base does not have an active mission and cargo movement is limited, unlike Dover Air Force Base in Delaware and Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington, which deliver supplies to Europe and Asia.
”You can’t put a dollar value on, in my opinion, all the training that revolves around these missions,” Massie said.
In December 2012, Mission of Love joined other teams from around the U.S. on a surgical trip to fix cleft pallets and lips of children. Another medical trip is scheduled for January and in February, volunteers will return to work on expanding the hospice building to include a medical and dental clinic.