Disaster Recovery- Elders, San Antonio Puerto Rico

One of our male paticipants is 82 years old, very poor and do not have relatives.  When he was collecting empty cans near the street a car hit him and had a fracture in his left knee.  Proyecto La Nueva Esperanza helped him with the ACAA (gubernmental office who is in charge of managing car accident insurance cases).  We were able to get him medical appointments and transportation in our official vehicle to Mayaguez which is 21 miles away from our town.  He needed a knee surgery and we provided the transportation to the surgery and the post-surgery appointments.  The whole process went from January to February 2015.  The participant is at home, doing well and we continue providing follow up during his recovery.

We continue with the meal distribution during the Saturday's and Sunday's actually to 45 participants.  The nurse visits them regularly to verify their health status. 

The volunteers are an important part of the Elderly Program.  One of our volunteers is an employee to a private company located in our town but comes from the Czech Republic.  He's been doing meal distribution during Sunday's since about 2 years ago and he's very enthusiastic.  We are sharing his experience below:

"It's something I will never forget and I will have always remember my "clients".  These people became kind of my elder friends, there are one weekend in good mood (despite all the circumstances), another one with health troubles looking for any possible help. I really appreciate the support your organization provides to them because in case of any troubles they have nobody to ask for help.  I enjoy distribution of lunch indeed, it's my Sunday routine."