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A truly unique experience was provided to more than 400 guests with Doctors Without Walls-Santa Barbara Street Medicine “taking health care to new heights,” at Elings Park on Saturday for the inaugural Glow in the Park Balloon Glow fundraiser benefiting the organization.
The crowd-pleasing event was presented by the experts from the Citrus Classic Balloon Festival and included a VIP reception with tethered rides followed by a champagne toast and a Sunset Glow, where guests gathered to enjoy food and drinks as all of the balloons on hand were inflated.
An AfterGlow dance party with cover band Hollywood U2 followed a scrumptious dinner and dessert. The musicians not only sounded the part but also played the part, performing classics such as “Even Better than the Real Thing” and “Beautiful Day” that got the crowd singing and dancing in a magical setting.
DWW-SBSM has been providing free volunteer medical care from Santa Barbara to Isla Vista for five years, treating the area’s most vulnerable year-round and during times of disaster, including the homeless, working poor and wherever the need lies.
“Doctors Without Walls was founded in 2009 by a small group of physicians who saw a need in Santa Barbara,” Executive Director Maria Long said. “They were seeing people die on the streets, they were seeing the poor and unsheltered not getting services they needed.”
The founders of DWW-SBSM originally went out on street rounds offering care and services.
“It’s evolved from a tiny, tiny organization to a mighty one with almost 200 volunteers and doctors,” Long said.
Today, a contingent of local volunteer doctors, nurses, social workers, students and community members work together, providing education, training and offering humanitarian aid from medical professionals and community leaders.
“We say that there are two beneficiaries in this,” Long said. “There are the beneficiaries that are our patients, and the beneficiaries are our students and our student volunteers who are next generation of medical leaders and humanitarian leaders.”
The services provided by the organization from mobile clinics and backpacks assisted more than 2,000 individuals in 2013, and help to greatly reduce emergency room visits and more effectively utilizing community resources.
“When you talk about homelessness, you’re giving one word which describes a very diverse, complicated, very vulnerable patient population,” DWW-SBSM medical director Jason Prystowsky M.D., told Noozhawk. “So we see a lot of people with chronic illness because it’s their chronic disease that landed them on the streets in the first place.”
Programs such as Wrap Around Care, Companion Care and UCSB Underserved Medicine Seminar service Santa Barbara County citizens with 79 percent of the organizations’ aid going to recipients with a disease putting them at risk of premature death.
The event captured the magic of both the summer evening and Elings Park, but most importantly raised $75,000 toward the mission of DWW-SBSM.
“Tonight is a culmination of celebrating new heights,” Long said, “and what better metaphor than to hold a hot air balloon in the park because we’re out in the parks for almost 365 days a year.”
— Noozhawk iSociety columnist Melissa Walker can be reached at mwalker@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkSociety, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz
