GFWC Brown Deer Junior Woman's Club

February 2012

A heartfelt thanks to the enthusiastic and compassionate members of the Brown Deer (Junior) Women's Club! Each year, the club makes a donation to the Su Salud breast cancer education and screening program through proceeds from their "Best Bra Contest."

Held in October, the fun and interactive event promotes awareness and develops support for local breast cancer causes. Women, men and entire families come out to decorate the bras and provide encouragement.

Su Salud delivers bilingual breast health education and breast cancer screening programs to women throughout Milwaukee and Waukesha counties. The program, founded in 2003, serves over 300 women annually.

Jan. 29, 2011

Providing rapid medical care to the ill and injured is what Cindy Christiansen does best.

But her job as an EMT became even more difficult when the patient in distress was a child.

"Kids grow at such different rates," said Christiansen, who would engage in a guessing game trying to determine the correct equipment size to bring on emergency calls involving children.

Sometimes her predictions - based on a child's stated age - were correct; other times they were not. She recalled a 911 call involving a 7-year-old who had stopped breathing.

"This child was much smaller than what we expected," said the Oconomowoc emergency worker, who had to scramble and make do with what she had. "It ended up working out, but it showed the need for the correct size."

Now, those troubles are over. Christiansen and several other emergency medical technicians are now equipped with pediatric jump kit bags filled with supplies sized to fit infants through adolescents in one organized, easily accessible, self-contained place.

Creating the bags to equip ambulances across the state is the ambitious effort of a group of women who heard about the critical need and wanted to act.

"We were too many moms with a lot of volunteer time on our hands," joked Elizabeth Davy, of the General Federation of Women's Clubs-Wisconsin, who chairs the ped bag project.

"We wanted to give emergency workers the edge that they needed to have better outcomes," Davy said. "The ped bags are very simple, easy and speedy."

The project dovetails with the organization's mission to enrich the quality of life of those in the community, said Nancy Honadel, president of the organization's Lakeshore District, which encompasses 516 members in 13 clubs located in Milwaukee, Ozaukee and Washington counties.

"The whole concept of the federation is community improvement," said Honadel, adding that the organization has clubs throughout the nation and abroad.

"Our organization has been the best-kept secret. We don't have the recognition for the work that we do because we don't do it for that purpose," she said. "Our goal is to improve the lives of children and other residents."

So far, the ped bag project has provided funding to supply 365, or 82%, of the ambulance departments throughout the state.

"For an organization to be able to donate the supplies to us is fantastic," said Greendale Fire Department Chief Tim Saidler, who recently ordered their bag. The department was on the scene of last year's tragic accident involving a 5-year-old girl who was struck and killed by a vehicle.

"I'm not saying that the bag would have changed the outcome, but it will be very readily available," Saidler said. "Emergency workers will be able to immediately start using it."

Davy said the organization, which contracts with a Waukesha County-based medical supply company that orders the necessary equipment and assembles the bags, has a goal to outfit all departments in the state.

"We have 81 more to go," she said. Last year, the organization was awarded a $100,000 matching grant from the state's Division of Public Health as part of the Wisconsin Hospital Emergency Preparedness program. The group, which has already raised $60,000, has until April to meet the match. "We need another $40,000 and we will be able to wrap."

Early on, Christiansen, an 11-year veteran of the Oconomowoc Fire Department, was instrumental in helping the women determine the essential supplies to include in the medical bags. Some of those items include child-size bag-valve masks as well as other ventilation and airway equipment and immobilization devices that are tailor-made to meet the needs of children.

"It was exciting working with them. They don't talk - they do," Christiansen said. "It has been a matter of making our job more efficient when seconds count."