PHW in the Long Beach VA
(An email from Carol Katz to Ed Nicholson, 2/7/2007) Two club past presidents, one of whom has been in charge of our tying program for years, and I met with the Director of Volunteer Services at the Long Beach VA today. There were several other directors present. If their level of enthusiasm is any indication, PHW is going to be very popular. They had already done a lot of brainstorming about the various programs under the VA umbrella and how each of them might utilize some aspect of PHW. Long Beach is the leading spinal cord injury VA in the country (so they said), and so there are a number of paraplegic young men. We visited the wood shop and the jewelry making shops, and talked with patients. There is every age group all the way back to WWII, but a surprising (to me) number from Iraq and Afghanistan. The patient volunteer who is in charge of the jewelry making shop is a fisherman and he was so excited about how fly tying could be as therapy and to work on fine motor skills. We brought the Director to our facilities after the meeting, so he could see our casting pond, clubhouse, classroom, and the park in which we are located, all of which are just one-half mile from the VA hospital. He left with a membership application for himself and a promise that he will be there next Tuesday for a fly tying lesson himself.
I have already contacted two club members to ask for donations of tying vices and equipment that we can leave in a locked cabinet in the VA therapy room so that patients will be able to practice between lessons. We have a board member who is involved in an organization that takes at-risk children on fishing excursions, so I will be talking to him about possibly making some arrangement for the VA patients after we identify the patients we will be working with and their needs.
Thank you for your assistance in reaching the right individual to speak to at the Long Beach VA, and for starting this program to begin with. It is so gratifying to see how enthusiastic the people at the VA are and to know that we are definitely going to have PHW in Long Beach.
Thanks,
Carole Katz
Long Beach Casting Club
And a follow-up (2/8/2007):
The individual with whom I met, Rex Jennings, is a regional director and has to give quarterly reports to all his counterparts in VA hospitals in his region. He intends to publish information about PHW in his next quarterly report so that other hospitals can learn about it. I’ll try to get a copy for you. I think we just missed his last quarterly, so it will be a few months.
Carole
