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A GLOBALLEGACY

OF CARE20 years of Heart to Heart International

Page 26

NOT A CHANCETalk of regional transit is a waste of time | Steve Rose, Page 40

★ JOHNSON COUNTY’S NEWS MAGAZINE T H E K A N S A S C I T Y S T A R | W E D N E S D A Y , M A Y 2 3 , 2 0 1 2J O C O 9 1 3 . C O M |


2 6 W E D N E S D AY , M AY 2 3 , 2 0 1 2 | J O C O 9 1 3 . C O M

Andre Butler grew up in south-

ern Kansas City, spending

summers working with his dad

mowing lawns for extra cash.

When he visited his grandmother Arbella Ev-

ans in another Kansas City neighborhood, she

would send him to Miss Sally’s house, a wid-

ow who lived down the street.

To cut Miss Sally’s grass for free.

After his work in the summer heat and hu-

midity, Miss Sally would invite young Andre

in for a cold glass of water and conversation

full of stories about her youth. The visit often

was the highlight of Miss Sally’s week.

His grandmother, who has since passed

away, instilled in Butler a sense of community.

Miss Sally’s grass cutter went on to become

the chief executive officer of Heart to Heart

International of Olathe, where his grandmoth-

er’s principles are put into action on a global

scale every day.

Celebrating 20 years of service this week,

Heart to Heart today works in 60 countries

around the world, responding to disasters and

delivering medical aid to developing nations.

Each year, thousands of individuals volunteer

their time and resources to the nonprofit. The

organization collects $80 million to $100 mil-

lion each year in donations from individuals,

businesses and other groups or organizations.

Butler has worked at Heart to Heart for 14 of

its 20 years. Recruiting thousands of volun-

teers and working in countries all over the

A deeper connection to helping worldwide

By LAURA NIGHTENGALE | Special to The Star

CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE


J O C O 9 1 3 . C O M | W E D N E S D AY , M AY 2 3 , 2 0 1 2 2 7

SUSAN PFANNMULLER |SPECIAL TO THE STAR

Five-year-oldCameron Carlisle ofOlathe recently puttogether a care kit forHeart to HeartInternational atZurich Insurance.Cameron’s mom, TinaCaldwell, works atZurich, and a group ofchildren related toemployees helped putthe kits together.


world, this network of service hasbecome an enormous sum of in-dividual acts of giving.

“I always compare Heart toHeart to my grandmother,” Butlersaid. “That’s what Heart toHeart’s all about. We are aboutseeing needs there and address-ing those needs, and even if thatentails, like my grandmother didwith me, telling someone elsethat I need you.”

Heart to Heart operates by giv-ing people “handles,” a place tograb on and connect with a com-munity in need using whateverskills they may have. They be-lieve everyone has something tooffer. For Butler growing up, itwas his ability to do yard work.As CEO of an international non-profit based in his hometown,he’s encouraging people to “thinkglobally, act locally.”

While Heart to Heart has beenan international organizationfrom its inception, domestic in-volvement is also a major themeof the organization’s work. Work-ing with community health clin-ics in the Kansas City metro areais a way for the global organiza-tion to focus efforts at home.

Since he took over as CEO in2010, Butler has made it a priorityfor Heart to Heart to strengthenthe organization’s presence in thecommunity. For example, Heartto Heart began partnering lastyear with the Kansas City, Mo.,school district to provide a back-pack for each elementary schoolstudent, all 10,000 of them,equipped with school suppliesand personal care items.

From several hundred to sever-al thousand, volunteers are in-volved in Heart to Heart’s manyprojects — some putting togethercare kits for a few hours, someworking for a week in a develop-ing country, and some workingyear-round in the Heart to Heartoffice.

“We have found that if we pro-vide the venue, we make it easy toconnect and we show them thereal need, and most importantly,we show them that they can have


an impact on that need,” Butlersaid. “That’s when people want toget involved.”

❚ ❚ ❚Volunteers at Heart to Heart

record their time not in monthsor years, but in natural disasters.Since Katrina. Since Haiti. SinceJoplin.

Warren Okeson has volun-teered since Greensburg. Aftertornadoes destroyed the western

Kansas town in 2007, he complet-ed online applications for bothHeart to Heart and the RedCross, looking for a place hecould lend a hand. His phonerang almost instantly after he hitthe send key, asking him to helpat the Heart to Heart global dis-tribution center.

Okeson drove to Heart toHeart’s Kansas City, Kan., ware-house and began packaging sup-

“… WE MAKE IT

EASY TO CONNECT

AND WE SHOW

THEM THE REAL

NEED, AND MOST

IMPORTANTLY, WE

SHOW THEM THAT

THEY CAN HAVE AN

IMPACT ON THAT

NEED. THAT’S

WHEN PEOPLE

WANT TO GET

INVOLVED.”

Andre Butler, Heart toHeart CEO

TAMMY LJUNGBLAD | THE KANSAS CITY STAR FILE PHOTO

Heart to Heart’s work overseas has included helping victims ofthe December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. In January 2005,the group brought water purification equipment to this camp inTangella, Sri Lanka, for those left homeless by the disaster.

FROM PREVIOUS PAGE



plies to be shipped to the disaster.Soon, he became a regular volun-teer at the warehouse.

Five years later, Okeson drivesof Heart to Heart’s mobile medi-cal unit, essentially a clinic onwheels. He’s sometimes calledthe fleet manager or principaldriver, but as a volunteer he’s nev-er been assigned a formal title.

In his travels — from San Fran-cisco to Orlando, Fla., from Hous-ton to Fargo, N.D. — he’s seen na-ture’s wrath on humankind. InCordova, Ala., after an EF-4 tor-nado ripped through the townlast April, the medical staff was

so overwhelmed with patientsthat Okeson stepped in to triagepatients. With no waiting room,patients were forced to line up ina parking lot to see a doctor.

Okeson stayed in Alabama withthe mobile medical unit for al-most a month, sleeping on a cotin the RV-like vehicle. On othertrips he’s stayed in community orRed Cross shelters and, some-times, in private homes. But in acommunity nearly wiped out bythe storm, Okeson had to impro-vise.

When Okeson saw the groupsweathering temperatures exceed-

ing 90 degrees, he provided waterand comfort to those in need.

Okeson, who retired from theSprint technical team shortly be-fore joining Heart to Heart, hadno special training to prepare himfor situations like this. Over theyears he has worked closely witheveryone from physicians torank-and-file folks like him whohave no medical background.He’s seen up close the Heart toHeart tenet that anyone can helptheir community.

On a cold, rainy January nightfollowing the Haiti earthquake in2010, Okeson drove the mobile

medical unit to the Wal-Mart Su-percenter on U.S. 40 in KansasCity, where he helped Heart toHeart collect donations to send tothe devastated country. A womanapproached the site and offeredher help collecting and packagingdonations.

“It was pretty obvious that shedidn’t have much but wanted tohelp, so we put a red T-shirt onher, over her winter coat,” Oke-son said.

After a 10-hour day, Okesonand the other volunteers packed

SUSAN PFANNMULLER | SPECIAL TO THE STAR

Warren Okeson has been a Heart to Heart volunteer for five years. Now he’s the principal driver for the mobile medical unit.



TAMMY LJUNGBLAD | THE KANSAS CITY STAR

Dr. Gary Morschfounded Heart to Heart

International 20 yearsago. Now he’s on the

board of directors, andhe’s still a regular

volunteer. Recently hepitched in at the

organization’swarehouse in Kansas

City, Kan.




When Dr. Gary Morsch approached Art Fillmore with theopportunity to return to Hanoi on an airlift with Heart toHeart International, the Vietnam veteran was skeptical.

“It was the last place in the world I wanted to go ever,” saidFillmore, who developed post-traumatic stress disorder afterhis war service.

But eventually he was persuaded, and inAugust 1994 he led an airlift back to Hanoidelivering $10 million worth of medicationson behalf of Heart to Heart.

There he witnessed the destruction leftby war: craters left by bombs, vegetationcompletely wiped out by napalm, and am-putees living in Vietnamese cities.

But he also saw communities recoveringand people leading normal lives. He got toknow some of the Vietnamese veterans heonce fought against and saw healing in theland that had been haunting his nightmares

for decades.He visited a clinic in Cu Chi, Vietnam, the city where his

25th Infantry Division was headquartered. When he arrivedhe encountered a small boy about 10 years old.

Doctors told Fillmore that the boy had a treatable disease,but with only herbal medicines available to treat him, theywere not expecting him to recover.

Fillmore offered doctors his bag filled with medical sup-plies from Heart to Heart. With that, he had delivered the an-tibiotics necessary to save the boy’s life.

“The boy, the doctor and I all had tears in our eyes, and forme it was so cathartic because I was now bringing healing to aplace where I was once involved in killing,” Fillmore said.“And literally at the moment, the nightmares I had about thewar went away.”

Over the next year, Fillmore made six trips back to Viet-nam. His involvement in Heart to Heart escalated after thosetrips. He served as chairman of the board from 2003 to 2006and still serves as a board member.

Heart to Heart gave Fillmore the opportunity to confrontthe phantoms of his past. After years of nightmares, he was fi-nally able to return home feeling safe.

“When I came and left on that first trip, it was with enor-mous relief and piece of mind and I found out that we couldmake a difference,” Fillmore said. “I felt a peace I hadn’t felt ina long time.”

A mission ofhealing, for othersand for himself

Art Fillmore

By LAURA NIGHTENGALESpecial to The Star

up for the evening. The next daywhen he arrived at the Power &Light District at 1 p.m. to do thesame thing, the woman was wait-ing for him on the sidewalk. Bythe time they were ready to call ita day about 8 p.m., it had begun torain.

“Looks like I’m going to get wetgoing home,” Okeson remembersher saying.

She told him she didn’t havemoney for the bus, so she was go-ing to walk to her home near theKansas City VA Medical Center.That’s at least five miles fromboth the Wal-Mart and the Power& Light District.

“We asked her how she got toWal-Mart the day before. She saidshe walked. Well, how did you getto the Power & Light District?She walked,” Okeson said. “Wefound her a ride home.”

❚ ❚ ❚These are some of founder Dr.

Gary Morsch’s basic principles:Everyone has something to give.Give what you can.

Morsch arrived late to a meet-ing of the Olathe Rotarians 20years ago, thinking he would graba plate of food and listen from theback of the room before returningto his busy practice as a familyphysician.

He had recently returned froma trip to a Cambodian refugeecamp. He had other things on hismind that evening, but when thescheduled speaker canceled atthe last minute, they askedMorsch to make a presentation.

Gary Morsch stood in front ofthat Holiday Inn ballroom andspoke from the heart. He had nonotes, no speech prepared. Whathe had was a philosophy, an idea— the idea that we live in a worldin need, full of people with the re-sources to give something, any-thing.

So there he stood, an Olathefamily physician, in front of 100of his friends — doctors, lawyers,bankers, teachers — and offered achallenge to this group of Rotarymembers.

“I said at the end, extemporane-ously, ‘Look around this room.Just think if you picked a need

somewhere in the world,stretched yourself, and went andpainted a school or fixed a roof orhelped this or that. And if you didthat — and then other RotaryClubs did that — that wouldchange the world.’ ”

That challenge, though simple,was enough to ignite a spark.

The Rotary president madehim another offer following thespeech. Would he like to organizean international trip for the Rota-ry members?

“I speak before I think. I justsaid, ‘Well sure. Yeah, I can dothat,’ ” Morsch said. “And I’m gladI did.”

He organized a group of Rotaryvolunteers to go to Belize to re-build a damaged YWCA that wason the verge of shutting down.From there, the group attractedmore volunteers and gained mo-mentum. When the group pre-pared an airlift to the former So-viet Union that took off May 22,1992, Heart to Heart Internationalwas created.

And there was no going back. ❚ ❚ ❚

A year ago an EF-5 tornadoswept through Joplin, Mo., killed161 people, destroyed 7,000homes and took out one of thecommunity’s two hospitals.

Within 48 hours the Heart toHeart mobile medical unit had ar-rived. They set up in a part ofsouthern Joplin that had beendevastated by the storm, a fewblocks from the destroyed St.John’s hospital.

Many were left without homesand cars and couldn’t get to med-ical facilities in the city. Heart toHeart set up in the center of thedestroyed neighborhoods so peo-ple in those areas could get themedical care they needed at themobile medical unit.

“If they had not been at the cor-ner of 20th and Main, peoplewould have had no other way toget medical care until some am-bulance would have come along,because we had no communica-tion either,” said Barbara Bilton,executive director of the Joplin




SUSAN PFANNMULLER | SPECIAL TO THE STAR

Heart to Heart has a partnership with El Centro, the Kansas Departmentof Health and Environment and KU Pediatrics to vaccinate uninsured andMedicaid-eligible adults and children. On a recent weekend, GuadalupeRodriguez was a patient at a Heart to Heart vaccine clinic at Casa deDios para las Naciones in Kansas City, Kan.

Isabel Valles (left) filled outthe forms with volunteer

Astrid Reynoso, 16, to receivevaccinations at a Heart to

Heart clinic at Casa de Diospara las Naciones in Kansas

City, Kan.



Community Clinic. “They wereout there going to people, and sothe help that they provided im-mediately was unbelievable.”

Over the next month, 70 Heartto Heart volunteers went to Jop-lin delivering medical care andsupplies to the recovering com-munity. More than 400 local vol-unteers assembled care kits at theglobal distribution center for tor-nado victims. Heart to Heart pro-vided first aid supplies, from ban-dages to vaccines.

“I would not have had the mon-ey or the ability when we had thetornado to purchase the tetanusvaccine that I got from them,” Bil-ton said. “It just made it so mucheasier for us to serve the needs ofthe uninsured in southwest Mis-souri.”

After about a month, the mo-bile medical unit packed up andreturned to Olathe, but thatwasn’t the end of Heart to Heart’sinvolvement in Joplin.

Heart to Heart continued toprovide supplies to the communi-ty clinic, sponsored events suchas health screenings and provid-ed 300 flu vaccines last fall. Ayear later, Heart to Heart is stillworking to supply local clinicsand is planning a second flu clinicfor September.

Recently the community clinicopened an on-site laboratorywith the help of Heart to Heartdonations, allowing the clinic toprovide quicker and more com-prehensive care to its patients.

“They didn’t just leave a monthafter the tornado. They’re stilltrying to figure out ways to helpour community recover,” Biltonsaid.

Indeed, Heart to Heart swoopsin fast when disaster hits, but theyare no flash in the pan.

Two years after the Haiti earth-quake, Heart to Heart is still inthe country. More than 400 Heartto Heart medical volunteers havedelivered more than $20 millionworth of aid and have treatedmore than 100,000 people. Theytreat about 2,500 patients a week.

Morsch — who has since

stepped back from Heart to Heartand now serves on the board ofdirectors and as a regular volun-teer — has revisited that BelizeYWCA where it all started. He’sbeen back several times, even inrecent years just to check in.

“The (YWCA) director says,‘You know what you gave us,what you Rotarians gave us? Itwasn’t really the work you did onthe building, the old building thatwe had,’ ” Morsch said. “He goes,‘It was hope. It made us realizehow important our work was, andit gave us hope.’ ”

❚ ❚ ❚Heart to Heart’s warehouse is

filled with various medical, careand health items awaiting theirtime to be packaged and deliv-ered to a disaster site or volunteerclinic. Ninety percent of thegoods are donated by pharmaceu-tical and other companies — onereason Heart to Heart is able tooperate so efficiently. More than98 percent of its funds go directlyinto program expenses.

Product donation is a large partof the equation. Companies suchas Johnson & Johnson and TevaPharmaceutical Industries,among others, have long-standingrelationships with Heart to Heart.FedEx has worked with Heart toHeart for years, offering pro bonotransportation of many ship-ments, including one to South Su-dan. Through such product andservice donations, a $1 monetarydonation to Heart to Heart isstretched to $25 worth of aid, offi-cials there said.

The organization has spent thelast two decades building rapportwith corporate sponsors.

“You’ve got to do what you sayyou’re going to do,” Morsch said.“Don’t make decisions based onexpediency because the presswants you to do it or they’re go-ing to cover it or it’s the sexything to do, or it’s where the mon-ey is. That’s not why you dothings.”

Volunteers with Heart to Heartusually travel at their own ex-pense. The organization discour-ages well-meaning volunteerswho don’t have the financial

means to complete their mission.But for those who can’t afford a

round-trip ticket to Haiti, Morschstarted Volunteers with Heart,one of about a half-dozen chari-ties Morsch has helped create.Run by his personal assistantPaula Johnson, it helps individu-als raise money for their volun-teer efforts, even if the trip is notwith Heart to Heart.

❚ ❚ ❚A flag from every country

where Heart to Heart has served— 116 in all — hangs from thewalls of the organization’s globaldistribution warehouse. Lastmonth, immigrants and refugeesfrom one of the world’s youngestnations gathered to present Heartto Heart with its newest additionto the collection: the flag of SouthSudan. After over half a centuryof turmoil and war, South Sudanbecame an independent nation inJuly 2011.

“Today I’m very honored andproud to be here to present theflag of my country,” Rebecca Ma-bior of South Sudan told the smallcrowd. “That flag means to us alot of things. We’ve lost parents,uncles, kids, we’ve lost a lot ofthings. This flag is a piece of com-fort.”

Her young son presented theflag, gift-wrapped in silver paper,to program director Scott Koertn-er.

“When we know you are ship-ping medication there, it helps usto know our people will be takencare of. It’s a big step,” Mabiorsaid, tears running down hercheeks.

A shipment containing nearlytwo tons of medical supplies leftthe global distribution center onApril 27 headed for Juba, SouthSudan. The nearly 4,000 poundsof supplies were accompanied by10 Ready Relief Boxes, each pro-viding pharmaceutical equip-ment to treat up to 500 patients,to be received by the Internation-al Medical Corps for distribution.

“This is a really good exampleof what we do. We’re mobilizers.

TAMMY LJUNGBLAD |THE KANSAS CITY STAR

FILE PHOTO

“DON’T MAKE

DECISIONS BASED

ON EXPEDIENCY

BECAUSE THE

PRESS WANTS YOU

TO DO IT OR

THEY’RE GOING TO

COVER IT OR IT’S

THE SEXY THING TO

DO, OR IT’S WHERE

THE MONEY IS.

THAT’S NOT WHY

YOU DO THINGS.”

Dr. Gary Morsch, Heart to Heart founder

FROM PREVIOUS PAGE




We’re connectors,” said Heath-er Ehlert, vice president ofglobal development.

❚ ❚ ❚Morsch can’t begin to esti-

mate the number of lives he hastouched through his work atHeart to Heart International.

“Most everything I do isbased on a real philosophy ofwhat I’m trying to do in life,with my life,” Morsch said,“which is to use whatever tal-ents I have and resources I’vebeen given and try to make theworld a better place.”

He speaks with a slightsouthern drawl, true to hisOklahoma roots, and wearsblue jeans to work on Fridays.He doesn’t even have an officeat Heart to Heart or any of theprograms he works with.

He didn’t have any idea,standing in front of that RotaryClub 20 years ago, that he wasstarting the multimillion-dollarorganization that Heart toHeart has become today.

“And I don’t know what’s go-ing to happen 20 years fromnow,” Morsch said, leaving hischallenge open to anyone will-ing to accept it.

TAMMY LJUNGBLAD | THE KANSAS CITY STAR

At Heart to Heart International’s warehouse in Kansas City, Kan., employees from State Street packed individual care kitsthat might be sent across oceans or across town.

Employees from State Street, including Nicole Callaway,double-checked the contents of care kits at Heart to Heart’swarehouse.

FROM PREVIOUS PAGE