Hurricane Mitch ripped through Central America in the fall of 1998
creating a widespread nightmare. People were killed by falling trees and
collapsing buildings caused by the high winds. The horrors remain in the
memories of the survivors, left to deal with rampant disease, loss of
loved ones and lost hope.
Most are trying to rebuild their lives and many are fleeing their
homes and leaving their families to make new lives in Mexico and the
United States.
Many humanitarian organizations are stepping to forward to help. And
now a “think-tank” better known for its non-partisan, non-profit
educational work is getting involved, too.
The National Defense Council Foundation has come to the rescue of
many desperate souls around the world since its inception in 1978. It
won the praise of former President Ronald Reagan who said, “The efforts
of the NDCF have been invaluable in offering hope and promise where
there was only despair.”
The NDCF will be “offering hope” to survivors of Hurricane Mitch. On
Feb. 3-8 representatives of the group will embark on a
medical/fact-finding mission to El Salvador. This isn’t the first time
it has helped in El Salvador. From 1982-1991 the NDCF provided 83.6 tons
of medicine into the hottest combat areas of the civil war, according to
Major F. Andy Messing, Jr. (retired) and executive director of NDCF.
Father Flavin Mucci, a Franciscan from Boston, Massachusetts, is a
vital player in helping the poor in El Salvador, according to Messing.
He runs a compound in Sonsonate City called AGAPE, in which he manages
an orphanage, a high school and a training center. In addition, he runs
a soup kitchen, home for un-wed mothers, a radio station, and more.
Hurricane Mitch killed 240 in Flavin’s western region of El Salvador
and
displaced 26,000 people. After witnessing the mass destruction, Flavin
sent a desperate request to Messing for immediate help.
NDCF responded by telling Flavin it will help by flying down needed
medical supplies. Departing from Charleston, South Carolina in a
twin-engine Aero Commander, piloted by Joe Williams, who saved many
anti-Communist freedom fighters in the Nicaraguan war, the flight will
airlift 150,000 pounds of vital medicine, obtained from doctors in
Washington, D.C.
The former chief of staff of the El Salvadoran air force, an NDCF
friend, will meet with the relief team on the military side of the
airfield, which will be under guard. While protected by bodyguards, they
will go to AGAPE to meet with Flavin and his doctors the following day.
They will also be met by pharmacist Tina Scribante and her husband John.
Tina will undertake the task of organizing the clinic’s pharmacy.
Messing says his work is “always for others,” and for America. The
work costs money and donations he receives for this “mission of mercy”
will help fund the trip and save lives. It is the right thing to do,
says Messing, and, “if we don’t help them in their home country … you
will see them in your neighborhoods in America.”
Messing assures, that any donation, “will mean we can save some
grief, that, but for the grace of God, didn’t happen to us”
You can mail your tax-deductible check to:
National Defense Council Foundation
1220 King Street, Suite # 230
Alexandria, VA, 22314.
