2006.11.25: November 25, 2006: Headlines: COS - Honduras: COS - Kenya: Service: San Antonio Express-News: Eddie O’Toole has shipped hundreds of school desks, chairs and other equipment from a renovated campus using banana company shipping containers that otherwise return empty to Honduras from the United States

Peace Corps Online: Directory: Honduras: Peace Corps Honduras: The Peace Corps in Honduras: 2006.11.25: November 25, 2006: Headlines: COS - Honduras: COS - Kenya: Service: San Antonio Express-News: Eddie O’Toole has shipped hundreds of school desks, chairs and other equipment from a renovated campus using banana company shipping containers that otherwise return empty to Honduras from the United States

By Admin1 (admin) (ppp-70-250-74-101.dsl.okcyok.swbell.net - 70.250.74.101) on Monday, December 11, 2006 - 11:00 am: Edit Post

Eddie O’Toole has shipped hundreds of school desks, chairs and other equipment from a renovated campus using banana company shipping containers that otherwise return empty to Honduras from the United States

Eddie O’Toole has shipped hundreds of school desks, chairs and other equipment from a renovated campus using banana company shipping containers that otherwise return empty to Honduras from the United States

Eddie O’Toole, who first saw Honduras as a Peace Corps volunteer, is the kind of cheerful American expatriate that can be found in remote corners of the planet. He’s been restoring old ambulances for reuse, and has brought a couple of neighbors in one of them to see the San Antonio doctors. “My wife was a Peace Corps volunteer in Kenya, and I was a Peace Corps volunteer here. We had a little girl. When she was 3, we said let’s go — bought a school bus for $500, drove it down. I started teaching kids basic mechanics.” O’Toole plans to move his family back to the United States eventually, but his goal is convincing Americans that it’s cheaper to send their old but functioning stuff to countries like Honduras than it is to dump it in landfills, even if they have to pay shipping costs.

Eddie O’Toole has shipped hundreds of school desks, chairs and other equipment from a renovated campus using banana company shipping containers that otherwise return empty to Honduras from the United States

Reporter's notebook: South Texas Physician Outreach

Web Posted: 11/26/2006 03:06 AM CST

Don Finley
Express-News Medical Editor

I’m not sure when I first learned of South Texas Physician Outreach, the San Antonio group that in one form or another has been providing free surgical care at the same government-run hospital, in the same small town in the mountains of Western Honduras, almost every year for some 25 years. I’m looking at one of my old clips, dated from Valentine’s Day, 1988, about some children brought back to San Antonio for complex surgeries. The group doesn’t bring back kids anymore, limiting their work to Santa Rosa de Copan. But Staff Photographer Jerry Lara and I had a chance to accompany this year’s group of 29 doctors, nurses and support staff from across San Antonio on its annual trip, which took place Nov. 5-12. Below are some memorable moments from that trip. — Don Finley

[Excerpt]

The expatriate

Eddie O’Toole, who first saw Honduras as a Peace Corps volunteer, is the kind of cheerful American expatriate that can be found in remote corners of the planet. He’s been restoring old ambulances for reuse, and has brought a couple of neighbors in one of them to see the San Antonio doctors. “My wife was a Peace Corps volunteer in Kenya, and I was a Peace Corps volunteer here. We had a little girl. When she was 3, we said let’s go — bought a school bus for $500, drove it down. I started teaching kids basic mechanics.”

In addition to the ambulances, he’s imported and restored a fire engine, a school bus, an entire building (in pieces). He shipped hundreds of school desks, chairs and other equipment from a renovated campus using banana company shipping containers that return empty to Honduras from the United States.

South Texas Physician Outreach does the same thing, sending down a huge banana container full of supplies a couple of months before their trip.

O’Toole plans to move his family back to the United States eventually, but his goal is convincing Americans that it’s cheaper to send their old but functioning stuff to countries like Honduras than it is to dump it in landfills, even if they have to pay shipping costs.




Links to Related Topics (Tags):

Headlines: November, 2006; Peace Corps Honduras; Directory of Honduras RPCVs; Messages and Announcements for Honduras RPCVs; Peace Corps Kenya; Directory of Kenya RPCVs; Messages and Announcements for Kenya RPCVs; Service





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Story Source: San Antonio Express-News

This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Honduras; COS - Kenya; Service

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