First Gift of Life Recipient, Grace Agwaru speaks to our club

Our club was very privileged today to welcome Grace Agwaru from Uganda to our meeting.  Grace was the very first Gift of Life recipient.  There have been over 16,000 other recipients since her operation in 1975.  She is spending a week in the USA to attend the annual Gift of Life fundraiser that takes place tomorrow night.  She currently runs the Gift of Life program in Uganda and is a global ambassador for Gift of Life.  She also spoke of running various programs in Uganda and how the focus is to not only bring in surgeons from other countries to perform the operations but to train local Ugandan doctors to also perform the operations. 

It was truly inspiring to hear her speak and to realize that without the operation her chance of living beyond 16 years were slim.  It is hard to imagine the amount of good that she has done for this program and other Gift of Life children that she continues to inspire every day.  As she spoke the parable of the Loaves and Fishes came to mind and how so many were nourished and sustained by such a small amount.  We wish her well in her work and feel blessed to have met her.  You can read more of her life story here and here.

In this photograph she is meeting with the 10,000th recipient of heart surgery, Jonathan Olunga:

She was joined by Ray Hough, Gift of Life Chair who shared his 15 years of experience working with the program.  While there are some challenges for hospitals to take in as many patients as they did in the past, the organization is adapting and doing more local operations in various countries around the world.

if you feel inspired to support this worthy cause you can make a donation here.

Grace with Gift of Life Chair, Ray Hough and our President, Tom Madigan

Ray Hough with Grace - key contributors to the Gift of Life initiative