A helping hand reaching out to Bolivia
Wakefield woman collects crutches, shoes for needy
Two hundred pairs of new shoes, 50 pairs of crutches, six wheelchairs and more than 100 Beanie Babies. That's just a portion of what Wakefield resident Paula Moran checked onto a flight to South America this past May.
Moran, co-owner of Blackstone Framing in Wakefield and an American Airlines gate agent, volunteers as mission coordinator for the nonprofit Airline
Moran says she fell in love with the Bolivian people on her first visit six years ago and has volunteered there exclusively since. She now knows the country's systems so well, she can get the Bolivian Navy to donate a bus to take a school of deaf children to the zoo. She also knows the names of the children on hospital waiting lists for hearing aids.
''I can't abandon what I've established there," says Moran, who despite the difficulty of the work is determined to continue. ''People who should have crutches are walking around with tree limbs and broom handles. There are 100 children waiting for hearing aids. How do you choose?"
Massive political demonstrations, tear gas, and roadblocks are common to the country that has seen five presidents in six years. But the money Moran raises back home goes far. On her May trip, Moran gave $100 to a school in El Alto, which was all it cost to put glass in all the windows, so students wouldn't need to wear coats in class.
''Health care is different than what we're used to. The fee to repair the vision of a 10-year old-child in Bolivia, for us, is $50," she said, with doctors donating their services to Airline Ambassadors. Moran does much of her own fund-raising, and talked an area business into donating the shoes, for example.
To 12-year-old David Jimenez in La Paz , she gave a wheelchair:
''When we placed David in his wheelchair, his little sister said, 'Now my brother will be able to see the sky.' There is not much that is taken for granted in Bolivia," Moran said.
AAI is an organization of airline personnel and others who use their travel benefits to bring humanitarian aid to children in need at home and abroad. To contact Moran about AAI, e-mail her at stonefelix@attg.net 
