Employees at Ember make a trip to Haiti to help orphans

  • By Kyle Valetini
  • December 11, 2012
  • 344
                        
Summary: Motivated by the generosity of the company owners, Ember Complete Care employees embark on a trip to Haiti to provide needed assistance to orphans. Ember Complete Care at Uhrichsville is in business to care for people when they need it the most. The commitment to caring for others doesn’t stop there. Each year Ember finds ways to give back to the community through charitable contributions. Ember Complete Care has been involved in supporting many events and charities over the last 15 years. Each year Ember donates on average $75,000 in funds to local charities, schools and foundations and this year it is no different. Ember owners Lois and Jock Grandison were contacted by Melissa Young, an orphanage operator at Loyal Oaks Community Chapel Children’s Home in Despinos, Haiti, to sponsor one of the 126 children in the orphanage for this year’s school expenses. Ember Complete Care sponsored a child and the Grandisons personally sponsored children. Inspired by the Grandisons, other Ember employees followed suit allowing seven children from the orphanage to be sponsored. “This sponsorship created a fire inside of Lois and just sponsoring a child wasn’t enough. Lois talked to her employees and offered to pay for anyone’s trip to Haiti that was interested in giving back,” said Eric Cox, marketing manager at Ember. “The stipulation was that each employee going on the trip had to bring two suit cases filled with donations and a carry on that would hold only the bare essentials that they would need for the week.” While experienced at giving this is the first time Ember has done anything like this before. The Ember Team members making the trip to Haiti include, Lois Grandison RN/CEO, Jock Grandison VP, Beth Jarvis RN, Matt Cranmer RN, Danielle Goebel RN, and Michelle Stiffler RN. The goal is to set up a mobile medical clinic for the benefit of the children in the orphanage that will later be used to help others in the community of Despinos. The team left Dec. 7 and returned Dec. 11. “The Haitian Government has granted our team permission to provide building supplies from the very generous donations that Matt Cranmer, an RN at Ember gathered and matched out of his own pocket. Matt was able to raise over $1,200 and Lois Grandison has offered to provide the rest of monies needed to build the children a safe and quality shelter,” said Cox. “Our team is very excited to help as many children as possible and we hope to make some sort of small impact in the children’s lives. The probability of this trip is that our team will be changed forever as people. These children literally have nothing other than what Melissa and the orphanage staff can provide for them and we make such a big deal about situations in our own lives that really don’t matter when you sit back and think about it,” said Cox. This mission trip is coordinated and funded by Ember Complete Care. “Our employees are members of many different religious groups and have all come together for a great cause. However, we have received multiple donations from many churches and local businesses that we would like to especially thank,” said Cox. “We put the word out of items that the children needed and the response was amazing. We received money donations that in turn were used to purchase items needed.” Donations were received from Twin City Pharmacy as well as Shrivers Pharmacy who donated a three month supply of children’s vitamins. Shoes, clothes, toys and cash donations were given by First United Methodist Church and Moravian Church in Gnadenhutten. The orphanage is operated by Melissa Young, a 1995 Claymont High School graduate and member of Park Christian Church at Dennison where she is actively involved with Imagine Missions who operate the orphanage. Young had taken several trips to Haiti where she assisted John Hawthorne, the former orphanage operator. After an accident left Hawthorne unable to continue his role at the orphanage Young took a yearlong leave of absence from her teaching job with Strasburg-Franklin Schools and eventually made the decision to stay on as the manager where she can continue to help the children.


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