@spotlight
Featuring deep conversations with thought leaders, innovators, rule-breakers, and the causal geniuses we discover inside Swell.
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 2:38
Critical Surgical Care for Sick Children: Introducing MENDING KIDS
Join this
conversation
Download the Swell app and instantly add your voice.
They've Mended Children in 66 countries, including the US. Welcome to Swell. Isabelle. I feel like everyone who's going to hear this conversation is going to take their hats off to you and say, wow, what a great thing. But when I spoke to you and I said, how did you get involved? That's the message I want to start out with
Isabelle Fox
@IMFox · 2:13
And it was when I started looking at the mission from sort of the documentarian side of it that I realized that I was going to need to travel a lot more and a lot more often because it had given me this sense of purpose that I didn't completely understand that I was missing until the time I came to that crossroads and realized that I could potentially actually help make a difference. And so that was the beginning of my journey with mending kids
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 0:54
Hey, Isabelle, the theme of making a difference is so prominent in most of our lives. And I think you took action. You saw that you can make a difference. And then you said, how can I move forward here? And that's so inspiring to a lot of people. What's also inspired hiring is the power of story. And I want to drop right into a story right now
Swell Team
@Swell · 0:15
Isabelle Fox
@IMFox · 4:18
So that involved a few things, getting a bunch of tests for him, sending those tests to our surgeon at the Vatican hospital in Italy, having him approve the surgery, and then figuring out how we were going to get his mom, who had four other children, was a subsistence farmer, didn't even speak Ugandan dialect. How we were going to get her and Badger from that village to Moanza, Tanzania. So we figured it out through a pastor in campalla who helped us
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 2:28
It's just beautiful just to see his face. That picture is so beautiful, and I want to keep in touch with him. And I want to know how he's doing. High cholesterol aside, since I touched upon the idea of the ups and downs of being a leader, can you talk about this past weekend you had a big event in Long Beach. Can you tell everybody what that event was and who appeared at that event?
Isabelle Fox
@IMFox · 3:19
We had 47 medical providers volunteering their time on Saturday to give 15 kids between the ages of two and 21 procedures they'd long been waiting for that they'd been denied coverage for a variety of reasons. But mostly these are procedures that were able to provide to them to help restore their self esteem. These are kids that have been bullying that might feel different and whose families don't often have the disposable cash to help them restore their self esteem
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 1:45
And I know that you work with some really fantastic people on a daily basis, and the more we understand the intricacies of mending kids and who's involved, the more it becomes sort of a layer in our own lives and that we think about it during times when we're looking to support something. So I would love to add more voices, add more stories so that we can continue understanding mending kids. So I would love for you to give a thought and we can take it from there
Join this
conversation
Download the Swell app and instantly add your voice.