We would like to wish you a very happy holiday season. Â We are so grateful for the amazing people who have come into our lives through the work we all do as a team. Â It is also a time we think about what more we can do for our community.
I was on call at Rhode Island Hospital recently and saw a homeless gentleman who had been assaulted. When we performed a CT scan on him to evaluate his fractures, he had so many broken bones from previous injuries that the only way we could distinguish the new fractures from the old ones was by finding the areas on his face that were newly swollen and black and blue.  It certainly was thought-provoking.  Fortunately, we have the Crossroads Center helping address our homeless problems. They are doing it with the help of many generous donors in our community.
We are so incredibly fortunate to not be living on the streets.  We also have wonderful facilities available to us such as Rhode Island Hospital and the trauma center should injuries happen or any other problems occur.  We can also look to Hasbro Children’s Hospital as a place that treats so many children and adolescents in need including those who are underinsured or have no insurance at all.  No one is turned away.
We are honored to help children who were born with birth defects. It has been particularly exciting to use the experience we have gained and the techniques we have developed in the field in order to help children with cleft lip, palate, and craniofacial abnormalities.
We continue to be impressed by the number of people in our community who have taken on amazing projects such as those listed below. Â We are blessed to live in a state where people are so generous and thoughtful of those who are not as fortunate. We truly believe in their mission statements and their ultimate goals. We invite you to visit their websites and consider joining us in their endeavors in 2017 and beyond.
Edesia is a remarkable non-profit organization started by Navyn Salem that produces specialized and nutritious packaged foods that change lives all over the world. Started in Providence, Rhode Island in 2009, Edesia’s “miracle packets†leave a local factory in Quonset Park in North Kingstown and are shipped to malnourished children across the globe. We know Navyn well and are incredibly impressed with her, her passion, her commitment and her unique organization. UNICEF, the World Food Programme, the US Department of Agriculture, and the US Agency for International Development are some of the organizations that Edesia’s products are distributed to.  www.edesianutrition.org
YearUp Providence was introduced to Rhode Island by Paul Salem, which is an intensive educational training program for low-income adults. The one-year program provides the opportunity for young individuals to receive college credits, internships with some of the top corporations and businesses in the state, and receive work development skills to be successful in the classroom and in the workplace. Paul Salem has helped create an incredibly vibrant program here and is also centrally involved in making this a key program nationally, as well.  www.yearup.org
Center for Resilience (formerly ResilientKids)Â
Center for Resilience (formerly ResilientKids) is a wonderful non-profit organization started in Providence, Rhode Island by Vanessa Weiner to teach the importance of mindfulness to young individuals in schools. Â www.centerforreslience.org
Mobile Loaves & Fishes (MLF) is a national organization committed to serving individuals in need, by providing permanent, sustainable solutions for the homeless, with compassion, love and dignity. The MLF mission assists the struggles homeless individuals face in obtaining their basic needs, food, community and a place to call home.  MLF’s The Truck Ministry program is incredible as their many devoted volunteers deliver food, clothing, personal hygiene products to areas where they are needed most. MLF is a program based locally in Rhode Island that is supported by multiple churches in the area. www.mlf.org
This is a wonderful energetic boy born with a bilateral cleft lip who we cared for at Hasbro Children’s Hospital.  We were so pleased to be able to use techniques we developed for our cosmetic surgery patients to help him with areas of his face that did not develop.  We were able to harvest his fat and the associated stem cells from another part of his body and use them to help build a functional lip.  We are very appreciative that Hasbro Children’s hospital was able to provide the most sophisticated care so he did not have to leave Rhode Island to get the care he deserved.
