Over the past two years, our Shorts articles about the Hogares de Ancianos, or Home of the Ancients, in Jinotepe, Nicaragua, have generated lots of emails and calls, all asking the same thing – "How’s the Nicaragua project coming?" Regular readers of Shorts know that our law firm, along with many long-term care industry friends and clients, helped us raise over $40,000 to help my friend Dr. Keren Brown Wilson and her Foundation, the Jessie F. Richardson Foundation, renovate, expand and improve the Hogares, the first senior center of any kind in Nicaragua, and one of the few in Central America. Our clients and friends in the industry, and my law partners, have given money, medical supplies and medical equipment, and I’ve been given time off work to go to Jinotepe, to help realize our joint dream of providing a safe place to sleep and live, healthy food, medicine, medical care, therapies, and compassion for homeless seniors in a country far away.

For those not familiar with the project, here’s a little history of how Keren first found the Hogares and how the Foundation has worked to improve it

Dr. Keren Brown Wilson of the Jessie F. Richardson Foundation (JFR) first visited Jinotepe at the suggestion of the Pan American Health Organization and the Nicaraguan Ministry of Family. When she and several others arrived at the elder home in Jinotepe, they were greeted by elders sharing poems and songs, and by staff members (often unpaid) eager to learn new skills. But they were also greeted by the grim fact that in Nicaragua, the second-poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, money to address the needs of vulnerable groups such as children is scarce. For elders it is almost nonexistent.

At Jinotepe when JFR first visited in 2003, water was not available at the elder home; it was brought in buckets from a distant source for drinking, cooking and cleaning. The building was woefully overcrowded with elders "living" on their cots, sleeping six to a room and in the hallways. Forty people lived in about 1,200 square feet of space. Elders at the home were often without medication, without adequate food (often eating only one meal a day), and without any opportunities for social, physical and mental stimulation. These elders had been abandoned by their families and a government that could not feed them.

JFR returned in 2004 and 2005 for brief visits. Results of training provided during the first visit were evident. A water tank had been installed and a micro-enterprise had started to generate money for the home’s operation. Baby steps, but steps nonetheless. When a JFR group visited in 2006, two student  teams from Portland State University were assigned to Jinotepe. One of these groups succeeded in doubling the supply of water by building a second water storage tank, while the other group (the "assessment team") assessed the building’s condition.

What they found was sobering: structural instability, dangerous wiring, a leaking unattached roof, and nonfunctional toilets. The building was dangerously overcrowded – the lucky ones were crammed into tiny spaces, with room only for a paper bag on a cot for their belongings. Others were still waiting for a cot.

With the help of a group of students and volunteer technical assistance from the U.S., plus community volunteers and staff in Jinotepe, repairs and construction on an expansion began in June 2007. But money was needed. Back in the U.S., Poyner Spruill coordinated fundraising among our clients and friends in the industry and raised over $40,000, roughly half the amount needed to complete the repairs and expansion. You, our readers, also sent medical supplies and a truckload of used nursing home equipment, including enough therapy equipment for every resident to receive physical therapy from a volunteer therapist from North Carolina who is spending a year at the Hogares. We also helped hire a full-time doctor for the facility, who is now studying geriatric medicine and will impact his country’s senior health care for years to come.

The project was delayed by politics, land title disputes, hurricanes and a flood. But at last it’s finished. The construction and renovation will be completed in March of this year, and on May 16, 2009, my family and I will attend the dedication of the building, including the naming of the Jack M. Burgess resident terrace, which will stand on the dusty patch of land where I first met with local folks and Keren to help plan and design the renovation and how we’d pay for it. Many of you know that the Foundation has decided to name that part of the facility for my late father, probably because I worried Keren to death that the seniors needed a peaceful place to relax and congregate. That is an honor my family doesn’t feel we deserve, because it was you, our readers, clients and friends, who provided the assets needed to make this dream a reality, and we will be forever grateful to you all for you’ve done.

So, I’ll come back from Jinotepe in May with great stories, lots of pictures and a thankful heart, and with a reminder of how lucky we all are in this country and how lucky I am to have such wonderful and generous colleagues and friends. I promise to run one more story on the Hogares, with pictures of the finished project and the residents.

When Keren first asked me to help with this project two years ago, I asked, "Keren, with all the problems in the world, why are we tackling this one in a place so far away?" I’ll never forget her answer: "Because we can." And we did, together. Thank you on behalf of the residents of the Hogares de Ancianos, all my new friends in Nicaragua, my colleagues at Poyner Spruill, and my family.