Got a Minute? with Florence Allbaugh

Age: 48

Hometown: Englewood, Ohio

Occupation: Educator

Family: Husband, Mark; Son, Alex, 13; Lea Rose, 9.

Explain what the Gift of Life Program is.

The Gift of Life program is a program where we bring in children from third world countries and war torn countries that have no other means of receiving any kind of medical care to save their life.

That being burn victims, heart patients of all kinds. As long as we have the services available here with the partners available we can help facilitate that.

How long have you been with Gift of Life?

It’s going on 14 years.

How did you get involved?

Talk about a story. First time I got involved was when I was invited to attend my very first Rotary meeting. I didn’t even know what Rotary was. I thought it was just a group of people getting together. I thought it was just all men. Well come to find out it wasn’t at that time. They had a few women, not as many, but it was mostly men. The gentleman who invited me said you sit here and we will talk and find out what Rotary is all about.

Come to find out, their speaker at that time was somebody talking from the club about the Gift of Life Program and they were looking for a host family for an incoming patient from Tajikistan, a 13-year-old girl who was burned from the waist down and was fused and I felt so sad. There were some people that volunteered but they needed someone immediately and they couldn’t do it immediately and so I said, “I got to make a phone call.”

I stepped out of the meeting, I called my husband and said “Would you have any objections if we hosted a child and her mom for the Gift of Life Program and I briefly explained it to him.

His answer to it was, “You know you are the one that is going to be taking care of them so it’s up to you whether you are going to want to do it.”

I said “Ya, I’m okay with it.”

He said, “Well then go ahead and do it.”

That’s how I got involved with the Gift of Life. It was my very first meeting and I wasn’t even a Rotarian (laughs).

What is one of the more memorable experiences you’ve had through Gift of Life?

My most memorable I would have to say is the one that brings a lot of tears to my eyes and it was Junrey Paradero. He was a child also from the Philippines as Suzanne is.

But his burn was so much more extensive. His face was fused literally. His face and chin were fused all the way down to his chest and he couldn’t close his mouth and every time he tried to eat he could barely get enough food to go down his throat to eat.

He was also fused on his side.

He looked so ghoulish that his mom told us that people and children would just throw stones at him because he looked so, so scary.

If you would take the most horrific horror movie and put that in real life, that’s what he looked like.

I kind of prepared my children for him arriving because he was going to be staying with us for six months I decided, at that time, besides being the director for the Gift of Life that he would stay with us.

I went to pick him up from the airport and I came home and my son was (look of shock) and I said, “It’s okay, it’s okay.

I told the little boy and his aunt who was the chaperon “My child is going to be shocked but it will be okay cause he will figure it out.”

One of the beautiful things about children they eventually don’t see the deformity once they get to know each other.

Over the course of the week they were playing and I asked (my son,) “Are you still kind of nervous about Junrey?”

“No, he’s fine, he’s cool, we are just gonna play.”

He treated him like a brother and played with him and took him with him everywhere.

When (Junrey) left he was crying and he still asks about where Junrey is and how Junrey’s doing.

It’s amazing because Junrey never attended school and now he’s graduating with honors so I’m really proud of that.

Do you have a philosophy when you are helping children?

Philosophy? I don’t really know that you would call it a philosophy. More of empathy, an understanding to try and help as many children as possible.

That’s been my driving goal ever since I can remember.

As a child I’ve always wanted to help children. I’ve always liked working and helping children. It eventually led me into education and since I couldn’t be a doctor because an experience I had:

I was going to study medicine and be a pediatrician and I went to visit my girlfriend who works in a morgue and a body had rigamortas and the body (popped up) and I went down (laughs).

I said, “I’m done.”

I switched to education instead.

For the full interview on video go to Blueridgenow.com

Interview by Mark Schulman, photograph by Patrick Sullivan