Timmy Foundation

The Timmy Foundation is an Indianapolis-based registered 501(c)3 nonprofit that works to expand access to healthcare and education by partnering with like-minded organizations, while empowering student and medical volunteers to engage directly in global development. In collaboration with its international and US partners, it facilitates medical brigades and channels financial, medical, and human resources to community-based projects in the countries where it serves. Through its work, the Timmy Foundation seeks to strengthen local health and education systems while promoting a spirit of humanitarianism and global awareness among its volunteers. Although it is based in Indianapolis, its reach is both national and global. It presently works with five high school chapters in Indianapolis, eleven university chapters throughout the United States, and haves ACTIVE projects with international partners in Ecuador, Guatemala, Nigeria, and Colombia.

The Timmy Foundation focuses on depth over breadth. The foundation understands that one time short-term efforts alone do not provide lasting change, but sustained efforts that focus on empowerment can. By supporting the missions of its partner organizations and complementing their work with short-term medical brigades, distribution of in-kind resources, and year-round funding, it seeks to build their capacity, expand their outreach, and help further our collective missions.

Founder

As Founder and President of the Timmy Foundation, Dr. Chuck Dietzen boasts a diverse career as pediatric physical medicine and rehabilitation specialist, international medicine enthusiast, entrepreneur, professor, and athlete. Growing up in Kokomo, Indiana, over 150 foster children came through his family’s home. It was then that it became apparent to his mother that he had a special gift with children and encouraged him to become a pediatrician.

In 1996 and 1997, Dr. Chuck traveled to India on orthopedic missions working alongside Mother Teresa. Inspired to make a deeper commitment to the medically-underserved, Dr. Chuck founded the Timmy Foundation in 1997, named after his brother who died in infancy. His work with the Timmy Foundation has taken him to Ecuador, Guatemala, Nigeria, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. He has also traveled to Albania, Cuba, Kenya, Honduras, Bolivia, El Salvador, the Ukraine, and Brazil.

Dr. Chuck earned his Bachelors Degree in Agriculture from Purdue University and his Doctor of Medicine from Indiana University. He received his training as a pediatric physical medicine and rehabilitation specialist at the University of Alabama Birmingham. He currently practices at St. Frances Hospital and Easter Seals Crossroads, where he also serves as Medical Director.

Mission and vision

Building healthy futures by expanding access to healthcare and education, while empowering students and volunteers to engage directly in global development.

Vision

The people we serve have the promise of healthy futures and our volunteers carry with them a spirit of humanitarianism and global awareness in their everyday lives.

Background

The Timmy Foundation was founded in 1997 by Dr. Charles Dietzen (Dr. Chuck), an Indianapolis-based pediatric physical medicine and rehabilitation specialist. After working with Mother Teresa in Calcutta in 1996, Dr. Chuck was inspired to broaden his commitment to serving children in an international setting and empower others to do the same. The foundation was named for ‘Timmy,’ Dr. Chuck’s older brother who died during infancy. The name is a tribute to both his family and children everywhere who all deserve the right to healthy futures.

Main objectives

• To provide direct medical assistance and healthcare services to low-income communities in the developing world through short-term medical brigades
• To strengthen our partner organizations by providing them with the financial, medical, in-kind, and human resources required to build their capacity and strengthen their missions, outreach, and impact
• To foster global awareness and humanitarian values in our students and volunteers by empowering them to actively engage in global development

Guiding principles

• Work in partnership with our International and Local Partner Organizations, always maintaining a spirit of dialog and understanding.
• Seek to increase the sustainability and strengthen the impact of our in-country programming, and support the local initiatives of our partner organizations.
• Empower volunteers to use their energy and compassion to address global development challenges, and cultivate within them a spirit of humanitarianism and global awareness.
• Ensure that our health programming and medical brigades are operated in a responsible, efficient and effective manner. This includes the utilization of data-driven, benchmarked evaluation strategies to guide our work.
• Support the missions of like-minded organizations, rather than attempting to create our own.

Approach

Since 2002, the foundation’s programming has been broadly divided into two categories: access to healthcare and education.

Health programming

Timmy’s health programming seeks to utilize the symbiotic relationship between short and long-term efforts. While recognizing that short-term medical brigades (focused on family medicine and located in marginal or remote locations) are limited in their ability to provide a wider scope of healthcare access, the foundation believes that these efforts paired with longer term commitments to partner organizations and individual communities can improve health outcomes in a systematic, sustainable, and profound fashion. With an increased focus on the responsibility and quality of its health efforts, Timmy attempts to take its week-long medical brigades and complement them with year-round funding to partner organizations.

Pairing short-term medical brigades with long-term capacity-building

Within the realm of health, the Timmy Foundation bridges each of its university, student-led chapters with one of its established international health partners – organizations that are working year-round to expand access to healthcare for underserved communities. Each student chapter is responsible for a 52-week commitment to raising funds for their partner; procuring many over-the-counter medicines for a medical brigade; and advocating on behalf of their partner organization, the Timmy Foundation, the communities we serve, and global health issues in general. Utilizing this approach, the foundation is able to:

• Provide direct medical care to underserved patients in the developing world through short-term medical brigades;
• Channel financial, medical, in-kind, and human resources to our international partners;
• Empower students to lead the efforts, become more dedicated humanitarians, and develop a life-long passion for service.

The Timmy Foundation staff coordinates the work of its student chapters and complements their work with additional fundraising, medicine procurement, supply warehousing, strategic partnerships, and overall programming improvements. Throughout the year, the foundation’s staff, volunteers, and generous network of supporters are dedicated to improving the outreach of its partner organizations and expanding health care access to the patients we serve.

Community adoption

Recognizing the irresponsibility of “one-hit wonder” brigade organizations, the Timmy Foundation has adopted specific communities in Ecuador and Guatemala—selected for their limited access to healthcare—with the aim of providing consistent care to those in need. Medical teams are sent in a year-round continuum to each of these selected communities, evenly spaced in two-to-three month intervals. With time, the hope is to improve the overall health outcomes in each of the adopted communities and provide a long-term, sustainable source of healthcare.

52-week presence

In order to promote greater sustainability, the Timmy Foundation has organized a year-round presence in each of the countries it serves. Medical teams travel every two-to-three months to the same communities, allowing the foundation to care for the chronically ill and track patients over time. The foundation also employs on-the-ground coordinators to serve as liaisons to its partner organizations, community leaders, and patients.

Patient tracking system

The Timmy Foundation now creates patient histories to track patients over time. Medical professionals are able to reference patient intake forms from previous clinic visits to make more informed diagnostic decisions and assess patient progress. The tracking system also allows the following of chronic patients who need longitudinal care and a steady supply of medicines. With time and gradual improvement, the Timmy Foundation can begin collecting useful data to evaluate its impact.

Critical referral systems

The scope of care provided during short-term brigades is limited. To compliment the attention provided in its medical clinics, the Timmy Foundation has established critical referral systems that provide patients in need of more advanced diagnostic testing, treatment, or surgery with specialized consultations at its partner institutions or local hospitals. The foundation subsidizes the costs of these consultations to further decrease patients’ barrier to healthcare access. Over the years, the foundation has made a number of modifications to its programming that has increased the referral system’s the effectiveness. In 2008, recognizing that many patients failed to follow-through with their referral consultation and/or treatment, the foundation instituted a community busing system. Following a medical brigade, buses were sent to each adopted community to transport referred patients to and from our partner organization. Additional modifications are currently being tested to improve follow-up attrition.

Education programming

At present, Timmy’s support of its educational partners is limited to financial support via foundation donors, members of the foundation’s extended network, and foundation fundraising activities. As Timmy continues to modify and upgrade its programming, it may look to link its educational partners to volunteer groups (or established institutions within the United States), in addition to undertaking more proactive projects that address both health and educational needs.

International outreach

The Timmy Foundation has six dynamic partnerships in four developing nations—Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, and Nigeria.

Medellín, Colombia

Fundación Poder Joven

Founded in 1996 by a group of university students in Medellin, Colombia, Poder Joven is a preventative program that helps at-risk children find an alternative to the streets. Working in two specific areas of Medellin, Poder Joven caters their services to children and families internally displaced from regions of Colombia and/or affected by the humanitarian crisis in the country. Poder Joven provides students with a safe place to go before and after school, while also offering tutoring, esteem-building activities, vocational training, daily meals, and much needed medical and dental care, as well as psychological counseling.

Quito, Ecuador

Tierra Nueva is a large nonprofit organization founded by the late Father José Carollo, an Italian priest. A relentless advocate for the poor, Father Carollo began Tierra Nueva as a social services center for Quito’s poorest citizens—many of whom are concentrated in the southern half of Ecuador’s capital city. At present, the foundation consists of an outpatient medical institute with 26 specialties, a fully functioning medical hospital, a mobile medical unit, a school for developmentally disabled youth, two daycare centers, a legal services center, a microcredit institution, and social work department. When Father Carollo died in May 2005, the Tierra Nueva Foundation Board of Directors pledged to complete the construction of Hospital Padre Carollo “Un Canto a la Vida,” the 148-bed hospital named in his honor—his final dream for Southern Quito. The hospital will ultimately serve a population exceeding 700,000. The Timmy Foundation medical brigades complement the Community Health Department’s outreach to the underserved, peripheral communities in South Quito, and our year-round, back-end financing subsidizes patient care and supports the ongoing construction of the new hospital.

The Timmy Foundation’s on-the-ground work in Quito includes the adoption of seven barrios in South Quito—neighborhoods specifically chosen for their limitations to healthcare access and socioeconomic levels.

• La Cocha
• Victoria de la Fé Alta
• Santo Domingo de Cutuglagua, sectors I and II
• Hermandad
• San Blas I
• Venecia
• Musculos Rieles

Every two-to-three months the Timmy Foundation sends a medical team to provide basic primary care in the adopted communities. Working with community leaders local health promoters, and representatives from Tierra Nueva, the Timmy Foundation aims to provide care to the sickest and poorest in these communities, acting as both a healthcare provider and catchment for serious cases.

Patients in need of care beyond the capacity of our brigade clinics are referred to Tierra Nueva’s hospital where they can receive attention from any of 26 specialties, further diagnostic testing, imaging services, surgery, and/or more comprehensive longitudinal care.

Quetzaltenango, Guatemala

Asociación Pop-Wuj

Asociación Pop-Wuj is a collectively owned non-profit Spanish language school that promotes community care through a versatile collection of programs. Founded in 1992 as a Spanish-language school, Pop-Wuj took an innovative approach to language education by pairing instruction with immersion service opportunities that meet the needs of impoverished rural communities near Quetzaltenango. Today, Pop Wuj is a self-described “social program with language instruction.” Their current projects include a daycare center, “safe stove” building projects, reforestation and ecological education, a student scholarship program, and most recently a health program. The health program incorporates a part-time clinic based out of Pop Wuj in Quetzaltenango, mobile medical teams that travel to rural villages, and public health education projects.

The Timmy Foundation’s medical brigades complement the mobile teams that Pop Wuj sends on a regular basis to impoverished, rural villages near Quetzaltenango. Working with Pop Wuj, the Timmy Foundation has adopted three communities to which it provides basic primary care services on each medical brigade, roughly every two-to-three months. These communities include:

• Pacaxjoj
• Xeabaj – a community displaced by Hurricane Stan
• Buena Vista

Patients in need of care beyond the capacity of the medical brigades are referred to Pop Wuj’s social service worker, who then assists the patient in finding a local health institution from which to seek more comprehensive care. The Timmy Foundation subsidizes the costs that referred patients incur.

The Timmy Foundation also sends its high school volunteers to Guatemala to assist Pop Wuj’s “safe stove” building projects. Smoke inhalation from the use of indoor, open-flame stoves is the second leading cause of death among children and one of the largest public health concerns among adults in Guatemala. Alongside our partner, Pop Wuj, the Timmy Foundation sends high school volunteers to support the construction of safe stoves in its adopted communities in Guatemala.

Rivers State, Nigeria

Bebor Model School and Nursery

The Bebor Model Nursery and Primary School (BMNPS) was founded in the rural village of Bodo City, Rivers State, Nigeria in 1995 as a response to the failure of the Nigerian government to maintain viable primary schools in the region. What began as a class of four students and one teacher housed in St. Andrew’s Anglican Church in Bodo City has now grown to include over 1,000 students on two campuses. When the number of pupils swelled to more than 200 in year 2000, a grant from the Canadian consulate in Lagos, Nigeria enabled it to begin construction on its first school building. The Canadian funding subsidized 80% of the construction costs, but was not sufficient to complete the entire building. Scott Pegg, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at IUPUI (in Indianapolis), first visited the Niger Delta in April 2000 on a research trip and met officials from the school. By 2008, fundraising efforts by Dr. Pegg, his wife Tijen, and the International Friends Committee of BMNPS has allowed the community-based schools to expand to six buildings, construct latrines and a procure a generator, and establish a scholarship program for those students most in need. The Timmy Foundation continues to work alongside Dr. Pegg and his wife to support BMNPS, and is currently poised to expand the school’s health related interventions.

Local outreach

Medical supply warehouse

In line with its mission of expanding access to health care resources, the foundation utilizes its medical warehouse to broker medical supplies to free or subsidized clinics within the Indianapolis community, as well as other Indianapolis-based mission organizations. Supplies include wheelchairs, walkers, braces, respiratory supplies, feeding tube materials, and simple surgical supplies. It is the foundation’s hope that the warehouse project grows to be an important asset and resource for small health organizations in Indianapolis.

Medical explorers curriculum

Developed by the Timmy Foundation’s founder, Dr. Chuck Dietzen, and several local science teachers and key members of Timmy’s network, the Medical Explorers Curriculum aims to heighten interest in science, specifically medicine, among high school-aged students. Because the program also incorporates case studies of real Timmy Foundation patients, it teaches important cultural lessons, global mindedness, and service to the poor. The unique program was successfully piloted several years ago and remains as a priority among Timmy’s local outreach. The foundation hopes to formally implement the Medical Explorers Curriculum in 10 Indianapolis high schools by spring, 2010.

College chapters

The Timmy Foundation is involved with many college students and has eleven chapters with different universities around the United States.

• University of Colorado at Boulder
• Ball State University
• Butler University
• Tufts University
• Indiana University
• Purdue University
• Davidson College
• University of Notre Dame
• DePauw University
• IUPUI
• University of Sciences in Philadelphia

High school chapters

The Timmy Foundation also supports a once-yearly high school service trip to our partner organizations in Ecuador or Guatemala including five Indianapolis area high school chapters.

• Park Tudor High School
• Brebeuf High School
• Cathedral High School
• International School of Indiana
• North Central High School