By MICHAEL CRIMMINS
Glasgow News 1
Drink containers were filled with water, orange juice and coffee, and various breakfast foods were set out, in the T. J. Pavilion community rooms as numerous individuals came together for Barren Inc.’s April Coffee and Commerce where they reflected on the past and looked to the future.
The event was sponsored by T. J. Community Mission Foundation, a philanthropic organization that supports the mission of T. J. Regional Health and was thus the focus of the morning festivities. The foundation was founded in 2014 “as a result of the vision of community leaders and the leadership of T.J. Regional Health,” and it was with this mindset that Doug Landers, board chair of the foundation, spoke.
Coming to the podium Landers thanked and recognized those who have helped and served the foundation over its tenure before musing on its past. Seven years after its founding, in 2021, the foundation unveiled its first capital project: the Shanti Niketan Hospice Home, which “provide[s] a place of comfort, counseling and compassionate, end-of-life treatment close to home.”
Board Chair Doug Landers spoke briefly about his excitement about the upcoming Samsonville Square, which will provide real-world rehabilitation opportunities. Michael Crimmins/Glasgow News 1.
However, not remaining in the past, Landers turned the attendee’s attention to the foundation’s second capital project. Dubbed Samsonville Square the roughly 2,000 square foot facility, which costs approximately $750,000, will provide real-world opportunities for individuals going through rehabilitation.
“We have another project too that we’re in the beginning phases of…in the back corner [of the pavilion’s grounds there] is about 2,000 square feet of unused space” Landers said. “We’re going to take that space and make it into an unusual rehab center. It’s going to be for people in the early stages of full rehab. It’ll have things like a kitchen where people can practice opening a cabinet. It seems like a small thing to us but to them it’s big.”
“This is the most fulfilling thing I’ve ever done in my life. It gives me such a sense of pride in what we can do together as a community,” he added.
After Lander’s brief remarks came Bharat Mody, a staple of the Glasgow community and founder of Community Medical Care, which was taken in as a subsection of the foundation in 2022, who used his 5 minutes to talk about the “To the Brim” food drive.
Bharat Mody, founder of Community Medical Care, which joined with T.J. Community Mission Foundation in 2022, spoke about the annual To The Brim food drive. He explained that the pandemic hurt donations to the drive and laid out three different options on how an individual could donate. Michael Crimmins/Glasgow News 1.
“Many times when we think [about] food insecurity we think of Africa, Asia or the Middle East, and many times we don’t understand that it is also in our own backyard,” Mody said.
Primarily he talked about the drop in monetary and non-perishable food donations the drive has had since the pandemic.
“Since COVID came along our food drive has suffered like many charities and we still haven’t recovered,” Mody said. “Last year our food drive was the worst year we’ve had. Our collections were down to 50 percent. Normally our food pantry starts getting empty by Christmas time [but] last year we started getting empty by Thanksgiving.”
To combat this, Mody told of three ways a person could donate. An individual could opt to donate in person during Labor Day weekend at Southgate or Walmart. In this vein he also mentioned making weekly donations to the nonprofit. Finally he mentioned a donation “Black Friday,” in which donations over $100 would automatically be matched.
“If you donate $100 or more [up to $10,000]within the next 24 hours each and every dollar you give over $100…will be matched by the Dr. Mody Foundation,” Mody said. “So your donation will be doubled right away, and you can’t ask for a better Friday than that.”
The remaining 44 minutes was given to Randy Burns, executive director of the T.J. Community Mission Foundation, who echoed Landers comments about Samsonville Square and looked back on the foundation’s decade serving the community.
“Isn’t it amazing how 10 years will fly by,” Burns said. “Here in just a few months we’re going to celebrate our ten-year anniversary; ten years of working together with so many in our region and our community to make a difference; ten years of joining hands with people who had a heart wanting to help their neighbor. Ten years is a long time, but ten years is also not very long whatsoever.”
Among the successes of the foundation, Burns mentioned the Breaking Barriers to Care, the senior disability program, which aims to help in the interim time between claiming disability and when Medicaid kicks in and the Kits for Kids program.
Much like Landers, Burns not only reflected on the foundation’s past but its future as well.
“It’s exciting for us [because] we are ending the first decade of the foundation’s existence but we are getting ready to launch the second and we have so many exciting plans.”
Randy Burns,executive director of the T.J. Community Mission Foundation, showed off the foundation’s new logo saying the orange circle seems to him to represents a rising sun, which he said was the perfect motif for the foundation as it enters into its second decade of existence. Michael Crimmins/Glasgow News 1.
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