1 week Ago By By Debbie Kelley [email protected]
Rachel Frederickson figured she’d come back from a mission-type trip in February to a poor area of rural southern Honduras feeling grateful for her life in Colorado Springs, where she works as a dermatology physician assistant. But she found more than gratitude during the five-day “vision trip” — which involved interacting with locals and empowering them in improving their lives rather than doing direct hands-on service. The experience turned out to be “life changing,” Frederickson said.
A team of employees from Vanguard Skin Specialists went on a mission trip to Haiti in 2020. This year’s trip was to rural Honduras. Because on the excursion that her employer, Vanguard Skin Specialists, offered to employees through World Vision, a humanitarian aid organization, Frederickson and other participants encountered a woman named Maria, who grew up in a family of 12.
For breakfast during her childhood, Maria shared one egg with three siblings. But a recent economic development project that World Vision led in the village, including the formation of a women’s money-saving group, now means each person in Maria’s family gets their own egg for breakfast from chickens they raise. “That was so eye-opening,” said Frederickson, who lead the Vanguard team.
“Our lives have been transformed by the people we met and their struggles for a better life for their families and communities — it changes the way we see the world. Their faith changes us.” Aligning purpose with profession is a deliberate strategy for Vanguard Skin Specialists, said Leisle Chung, CEO and co-owner of the dermatology business with her husband, Dr.
Vinh Chung. “It motivates people and makes them feel like they’re making a difference,” she said. Many employers forge ways for employees to contribute to nonprofits or volunteer for philanthropic projects outside of work, but some are taking philanthropy to another level.
Locally, Vanguard gives staff opportunities to go on Christian-based trips, and Black Forest-based S-5! Metal Roof Innovations started a family foundation supported solely by employees that benefits Christian efforts at home and abroad. Vanguard picks up partial costs of missions, depending on tenure and based on a sliding scale, and also encourages sponsorship of children in impoverished communities, Chung said. It’s all voluntary for the practice’s 150 employees.
The extra sideline is an extension of a workplace culture that recognizes service to others here and elsewhere, Chung said. And it goes hand in hand with the company’s mission to “Make a positive impact on our patients, our community and the world.” A year after opening in 2009 and realizing the business likely would succeed, Chung said she and her husband started the philanthropic program.
As an immigrant from Vietnam, Vinh Chung received assistance from Christian groups when he arrived in the United States as a child with his family. He attributes the kindness and generosity he experienced to he and Leisle, a refugee from South Korea, being able to attain the American dream. The couple’s goal, said Stacy Rummel, human resources manager at Vanguard who also was part of the Honduras contingent, is to give back by paying benevolence forward.
“The more people know that, the more they understand the compounding effect when you take an action to make a difference in someone’s life,” she said. “Dr. Chung is a walking and talking example of what happens when we love Jesus as we are taught.
” For a decade, Vanguard concentrated the practice’s missionary efforts on stopping human and sex trafficking of children in Cambodia. The Chungs then moved on to spotlight access to clean water in Rwanda, a primary care and maternal health clinic in the slums of Haiti and now Honduras, where projects have focused on providing clean water, sanitation, hygiene and economic development. “Honduras is one of the countries people feel they need to migrate out of — they can’t make a living, the conditions are terrible, the roads are bad,” Leisle Chung said.
“But they want to stay, and if we can create opportunities, they can stay at home.” Vinh Chung said his refugee family understands the desperation involved in escaping violence and poverty. “Through our international work that provides basic needs and jobs, we hope to help families flourish in their own communities,” he said.
“It is grounded in my belief that every human being deserves safety, dignity and the opportunity to thrive.” Rummel’s takeaway from the Honduras mission: “There’s a saying about give a man a fish and he eats for a day; teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime. I got to experience that with the people there.
It was incredible to see the hope and empowerment and know it’s going to continue.” To earn and save a collective pot of $1,200 in a region where people typically are paid less than $3 a day, the economic development project in Honduras started months ago with teaching villagers how to raise, breed and process chickens, and grow, grind and produce corn products. The Vanguard crew also met a woman who early every morning would collect dirty water from a well that had agricultural runoff every morning for her family.
But gastrointestinal diseases contracted from the contaminated water made people sick, and some died. A Honduran woman gets fresh water for the first time at her home when the Vanguard team recently visited. The Vanguard crew watched the inaugural twist of the spigot at the woman’s home, as clean water flowed.
Every household in the 136-family village has fresh water, using provided tanks and equipment but also dependent on residents digging trenches for the water pipes, contributing to a maintenance fund and having three villagers trained as plumbers. Frederickson said she’ll never forget seeing what clean water meant to the community. “We were able to connect, and in a small way walk in their shoes,” she said.
“We heard their stories of what it’s like to live without resources and learned the steps they’re taking to help improve their situation.” The joy and pride was unmistakable on villagers’ faces as the new water system became activated, Leisle Chung said. “It’s not charity; it’s unlocking a community’s God-given potential.
” After reflection, Frederickson said she’s ready to do more. She just isn’t sure what yet and has asked God for guidance and direction. “To be grateful and stop there would be a tragedy,” she said.
“That gratefulness inspires us to action.” Through four related enterprises, Rob Haddock’s successful 34-year-old company, S-5! Metal Roof Innovations, creates and manufactures patented metal roof brackets and clamps, solar rack systems, snow retention systems and companion items. While the products reach 76 countries globally, the business remains family-owned and operated from Black Forest and follows a strict business ethics code and cultural ethos that stands by doing things “the right way,” he said.
A decade ago, Haddock started a private family foundation that’s funded solely by the owners and their 200 employees. Caught Fish Foundation — named, Haddock said, because the family’s surname is a fish species and the family has been spiritually “caught” by Jesus Christ — supports 501©(3) organizations that “save, preserve and protect human life and/or initiate lasting changes to improve individual lives.” “I founded the foundation to create a legacy of giving, and giving the way Jesus taught, which was to help the downtrodden, the poor and the disadvantaged, and to heal the sick,” Haddock said.
Beneficiaries of an annual $2.5 to $3 million disbursement include organizations that provide alternatives to abortion, healing of physical and mental health, care for widows and orphans, clinics for cancer patients, anti-trafficking programs and rehabilitation for disabled veterans. The foundation supports 20 such Christian ministries, some based in Colorado Springs, such as Exodus Road, Life Network and Youth for Christ.
“I guess you could say that we work to give,” Haddock said. Contact the writer: 719-476-1656..
