The 8th annual M.O.S.T. Mariachi Festival starts June 1 which benefits the Mercy
Outreach Surgical Team, or M.O.S.T. So here to tell us about it are volunteers and
registered nurse Susanna Verdugo Ramos and Dr. Ken Dively. Good morning to the
both of you. This program M.O.S.T. has been going on for 32 years which is fantastic.
So this involves traveling to Mexico and providing some of those critical
surgeries to people who really wouldn't normally get those services. Susana, could
you tell us a little bit about why this was all started?
Well it was started back 32 years ago and initially was a group of nurses that...
at Mercy nurse's hospital that wanted to give something back and wanted to help. So initially they were coming, they were bringing buses over to Mercy
Hospital and performing surgery and that changed back...
Well we quit doing
that when it was impossible to bring patients across the
border after that. But we'd always gone and done at least two two-week trips a
year to different places, locations in Mexico. Yeah and so we're talking about
surgeries, everything from correcting cleft palates, removing extra fingers or
toes, correcting vision, cross-eyed, hernia repairs, and these are surgeries
that can really make a difference in a young child's life. Dr. Dively, can you
tell us some of the changes you see because really sometimes these kids are
just pushed out, they're ostracized from the community. It's very different. It's
difficult to be a kid going to school anyway and if you have a physical
deformity, it's particularly hard to go to school, and so correcting a cleft lip,
correcting a cross-eyed kid, makes a huge difference in their lives and the lives
of their their families. We go down there, Dr. Harry O'Halloran who we're honoring at
the Mariachi Festival this year. We recently made a trip to Mexico, did
over a hundred surgeries over a period of two or three days and there's
cross-eyed kids, one of my favorite kids I remember down in Mexico - a little boy
comes in and he has nystagmus which is a problem when your eyes are jerking back
and forth all the time you can't see very well at all.
So Harry makes the correction and the kid is being wheeled out of the hospital
saying 'I've been saved, I can see!' and it was heartwarming to see that and also
was good for business. I mean the number of surgeries to do in such a
short period of time, that's exhausting but to see that finish is so worth it. I
think the organization was started to give people the opportunity to use their
their skills in a voluntary and pro-bono manner and the
rewards from that are heartwarming. I've gotten a lot more from doing...
participating in M.O.S.T. than I've really ever given and it'll be my 50th trip
this October. So you mentioned, I mean, this is pro-bono but it's still
even though the volunteers, the nurses and doctors are providing their services
and their knowledge for free, it costs a lot of money to do this and so that is
where we get to the the fundraising aspect of this. So June 1 I mentioned
is a big Mariachi Festival. Tell us how that works, what people can expect if
they go. They can expect a lot of fun. There's delicious food, there's a lot of
raffles - not raffles necessarily, but a lot of silent auctions, live actions
and it's fantastic. It's a lot of camaraderie and it's a great opportunity
to give a little bit and experience what it's all about, what M.O.S.T. is all about.
Yeah I say it's really...it's gone from a very small event and now we're
having- it's a very nice event at Humphreys By the Bay
and so there'll be tables, it's a beautiful venue, there's still tickets
left. We have probably less than a hundred
tickets left but if people want to go, it's an easy way to help the
organization raise money. And you get to hear a Grammy award-winning mariachi
band, Los Camperos. So it's a fantastic evening and to date, M.O.S.T. has helped
14,000 children so just want to make sure that everybody understands
this is going to such a great cause and we're so appreciative of the work that
you're doing and thankful that you're able to do it.
Thank you.