Endowment Endeavor

 

IMAHELPS TO CREATE AN ENDOWMENT FUND

By Jeff Crider, August 2023

 

         IMAHelps has operated for 23 years as an all-volunteer organization in which no one receives a salary or compensation and virtually all of the donations we receive are used to purchase medicines and supplies.

         But thanks to the generosity of George O’Leary, an Irish entrepreneur and retired RV resort operator and developer and former owner of the two Rincon Country RV Resorts in Tucson, Arizona, IMAHelps is now taking its first steps toward creating an endowment.

         “While all of us are volunteers, we realize that if we want IMAHelps to outlive us and continue to provide life-changing surgeries, dentistry, prosthetics and other healthcare services around the world, we have to create an endowment,” said Dr. Cristobal Barrios, Jr., IMAHelps’ president and CEO.

         “When we build our endowment to a sufficient size, we will be able to start using interest from our endowment to provide a modest stipend for a CEO and perhaps another employee at the board’s direction to manage our medical mission operations.”

Patients packed into mesh-like tents waiting to see the IMAHelps team at Hospital General Docente de Calderon in Quito, Ecuador.

Photo courtesy of Jeff Crider, IMAHelps.

         Moving forward, IMAHelps will now fundraise for both its operations fund, which is used to pay for medicines, supplies, in-country transportation and other setup costs associated with each medical mission, as well as a separate endowment fund, which we will continue to build over the years with the goal of building IMAHelps into a sustainable nonprofit organization.

         “We realize it’s going to take years for us to generate the kinds of legacy donations and support we need for an endowment,” Dr. Barrios said. “But thanks for Mr. O’Leary’s generosity and encouragement, we’re able to start thinking bigger about how we’re going to take this wonderful organization that Ines and Tracey Allen created and mold it into something that will continue to provide healthcare and hope to people of limited means around the world.”

         Mr. O’Leary himself is an immigrant success story, having left County Tipperary, Ireland to pursue a new life of opportunity in North America in the 1950s. After initially working in Uranium City near Canada’s Northwest Territories, Mr. O’Leary relocated to St. Paul, Minnesota, where we started a construction business. He later relocated to Tucson, where he developed a mobile home park and the Rincon County RV Resorts, which he sold upon his retirement two years ago.

A Vision of Hope: The First 20 Years of IMAHelps.

Click to buy from our store. All proceeds are used to purchase medicines and supplies.

         Mr. O’Leary learned about IMAHelps after hiring Jeff Crider to help him edit his family history and business biography, which he self-published earlier this year. Mr. O’Leary helped underwrite the cost of printing A Vision of Hope: The First 20 Years of IMAHelps, and he has been moved by the volunteer work IMAHelps volunteers have been providing to the poor throughout Central and South America.

         “I have been impressed with the humanitarian work IMAHelps has been doing, and I feel that it is worthwhile to support their efforts to provide surgeries, prosthetics and other healthcare services to the poor,” Mr. O’Leary said.