A WOMAN'S BRIDGE

Trudy Harsh: Founder of The Brain Foundation

7/20/2012

 
Picture
by Yoon Joung Lee

The founder of the Brain Foundation and a real estate agent, Trudy Harsh, lost her daughter in 2006. Her daughter, Laura, developed a brain tumor when she was 8.  Laura had a surgery to remove her tumor at Georgetown hospital, and the doctor warned her family that Laura can only live about 6 more years.  After the surgery, she was never the same again.  However, with years of hospitalizations and various treatment programs, she survived for 30 more years until she died at age 38 in 2006.

With her daughter’s experiences, Harsh became an advocate and involved in the issue of  the mentally disabled by brain injury and disease by serving as a member of various boards and committees at the Fairfax-Falls Church Community Service Board.  While she was working for the various community services, she realized that the government wasn’t solving the problems fast enough to fill the needs of disabled people. Especially the large housing need in Fairfax County. She founded the Brain Foundation in 2003 to raise funds for buying, furnishing and keeping up homes for those in need.

In 2006, the Brain Foundation was able to obtain a $450,000 loan from the Virginia Housing Development Authority as Wilbur Dove, an entrepreneur who was running his own nonprofit housing group, agreed to seed her project with $50,000. The foundation bought a four-bedroom townhouse furnished by donations.  Harsh named the facility “Laura’s House” in honor of her daughter. This first Laura’s House opened in 2006.

The Brain Foundation now has a total  of 5 Laura’s Houses and 20 residents are living there.  The tenants only pay part of the cost of the houses and utilities and the Brain Foundation pays the rest.  A local mental-health agency manages the properties and provides counseling.

Ron Wilensky in Orlando, Florida, a former Marriott executive, was inspired by Harsh’s model and founded the Brain Foundation of Florida.  Ron Wilensky’s brother-in-law, Dave Jeffreys, also had a mental illness for 40 years.  The Brain Foundation of Florida is raising their funds the same way Harsh did, and their houses are helping so many disabled in Florida. They named those houses “Dave’s House.” The Brain Foundation is successful, however, what true success means to Trudy Harsh is helping people with disabilities stand up by themselves and live independently.


Mother Teresa: A Major Religious Figure in the Late 20th Century

7/9/2012

 
Picture
by Yoon Joung Lee

The “Satin of Gutters,” Mother Teresa, was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in Skopje, capital of the Republic of Macedonia in 1910. She was the youngest of the children of  an Albanian family.  Her father worked in Albanian politics but passed away when she was eight years old in 1919.  Since that time, her mother raised her as a  Roman Catholic.

When she was twelve years old, she felt the call of God and she decided to become a missionary to spread the love of God to the world.   At the age of eighteen she left Skopje and joined the Sisters of Loreto which is an Irish community of nuns with missions in India. Then, she was sent to India and took her initial vows as a nun.

From 1931 to 1948, she worked as a teacher at St. Mary’s High School in Calcutta.  However, what catches her intentions the most was the outside world where people suffered from poverty.  She made such a deep impression of the outside and left the school.  She devoted herself to working for the poor in the slums of Calcutta. There, she founded an open-air school for slum children and gained many voluntary helpers and financial support.

In 1950, she founded “The Missionaries of Charity” by the permission from the Holy See. The organization’s mission was to take care of “the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared for throughout society, people that have become a burden to the society and are shunned by everyone.”  This organization has spread all over the over the world including Eastern European countries and the former Soviet Union.  It started with a small order, but by the 1990s, more than 40 countries with over one million workers are supporting and assisting the organization. Her numerous awards and distinctions include the Pope John XXIII Peace Prize in 1971, the Nehru Prize in 1972, the Balzan Prize in 1979 and the Templeton and Magsaysay awards.



    Archives

    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    September 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    October 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010

    Categories

    All
    Amelia Earhart
    American South
    Amy Beach
    Anna Nzinga
    Anna Sewell
    Anna Wintour
    Anne Bronte
    Barbra Steisand
    Baroness Blixen
    Benazir Bhutto
    Billie Jean King
    Blackfeet Nation
    Brigitte Bardot
    Bronte Sisters
    Catherine The Great
    Charlotte Bronte
    Cheng I Sao
    Civil Rights Movement
    Clara Barton
    Cleopatra
    Cristina Fernandes De Kirchner
    Dagmar Wilson
    Dido Belle
    Dilma Rousseff
    Dorothy Kamenshek
    Edith Wharton
    Eleanor Of Aquitaine
    Elouise Cobell
    Emily Bronte
    Fannie Flagg
    Frances Glessner Lee
    Frida Kahlo
    Gabby Douglas
    Geun Hye Park
    Gone With The Wind
    Hannah Snell
    Harper Lee
    Harriet Tubman
    Hatshepsut
    Heian Period
    Helen Keller
    Hillary Rodham Clinton
    Ho Ching
    Hypatia Of Alexandria
    Intro
    Irena Sendler
    Isabelle Scott
    Jamestown
    Jane Eyre
    Jane Goodall
    Jaqueline Kennedy Onassis
    Jody Williams
    Josephine Baker
    Journalism
    Joy Ogwu
    Julia Ward Howe
    Laurie Marker
    Madeleine Korbel Albright
    Margaret Bourke-White
    Margaret Mitchell
    Margaret Thatcher
    Margot Wallstrom
    Maria Otero
    Marilyn Monroe
    Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
    Mary Poppins
    Maya Angelou
    Meip Gies
    Meryl Streep
    Mother Theresa
    Murasaki Shikibu
    Nellie Bly
    Patricia Cloherty
    Pl Travers
    Pocahontas
    Rachel Carson
    Rosalind Franklin
    Rosa Parks
    Rosemary Kennedy
    Ruth Harkness
    Sally Ride
    Sheila Johnson
    Song Qingling
    Sophie Scholl
    Sylvia Plath
    The Shriver Report
    To Kill A Mockingbird
    Trudy Harsh
    Vera Wang
    Victorian Era
    Women Journalists In Pakistan
    WWII
    Yearling

    RSS Feed