September 2017 Foundation Update

Disque Foundation volunteers at Ronald McDonald House

Disque Foundation volunteers at Ronald McDonald House (RMH) activity night.

The Disque Foundation has officially been volunteering at the Ronald McDonald House of Chicago for 10 years.

We are so thankful for all of the volunteers who have joined our team on these monthly visits, helping bring a smile and a fun activity to the children and families at RMH.

This September our event at the RMH activity night was inspired by school starting back up, the leaves started to change colors in Chicago and the season of fall! The activity involved painting trees on construction paper and gluing fall colored leaves, made out of pompoms and stickers, onto the construction paper. We added eyes to make the trees animated. Some kids decided they wanted to just draw or paint on their own, getting very creative with it!

Volunteers doing crafts and arts with children at Ronald McDonald house

One of the children’s fall creations from RMH activity night.

There were about 10-15 children and a several parents who attended the after dinner craft session. The children’s parents enjoyed watching their kids competing a simple, fun activity.

Our medical app, MediCode is now available in Spanish! MediCode gives you easy access to all of the American Heart Association’s (AHA) algorithms from the palm of your hand. This algorithm app for iOS makes it easy for physicians, paramedics and nurses to care and save lives and can be downloaded for free. You can download MediCode now and start saving lives!

By making our app available in Spanish, we hope to increase the number of people empowered to save lives as there is no longer a language barrier. We would especially like to thank one of our raving fans and colleagues, Leonardo Espindola. Leonardo reached out to the foundation asking for a Spanish version of our application so that he could share the life saving knowledge with his friends and family members who speak Spanish. Leonardo’s hard work in translating our algorithms made this all possible!

Algorithm for Spanish mobile app

BLS algorithm in Spanish from our app MediCode, available in the app store!

At the start of January 2018 the Disque Foundation will be embarking on our annual foundation trip to empower others to save lives. This year we are beyond fortunate to be able to travel to Nairobi, Kenya for 10 days, where we will be joining forces with the Foundation for International Cardiac & Children’s Services (FICCS). FICCS Founder, Dr. Parag V. Patel, began donating his time and cardiac expertise after completion of his cardiology fellowship. Dr. Patel is the Director of Cardiac Fellowship and Cardiac ICU at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, IL. Since 2010, the FICCS medical team has completed over 50 successful charity cardiac catheterization procedures, including donated pacemakers. In addition, FICCS has trained over 350 young women in health and hygiene and has provided medical and nutritional support to over 2500 women and children. In Kenya we will be training we will be helping FICCS educate, train and empower their “superusers,” nurses, and medical students with CPR and ACLS skills. We are currently fundraising for our trip, and if you are interested in supporting our cause you may consider donating here!

Exciting things are coming up for the Disque Foundation Empowerment Team in the next few months, and we can’t wait to share them with you!