USD Magazine, Winter 2000

MENDING BROKEN HEARTS Tbilisi's children get needed cardiac surgery thanks to one alumna's tenacity wth each box she hoists inro the mas– sive shipping container that long ago rook over her front driveway, Cindy Basso Earon promises herself this will be the last time. The last time she'll use her family's garage

home computer. Yet since the organization opened in September 1996, Global Healing– trained docrors have performed more than 300 surgeries, the charity has renovated a pediatric cardiology ward to Western stan– dards, and it is creating the first safe blood bank in the city of 2.2 million people. For her dedication and tenacity, Basso Eaton in December received USD's Bishop Charles Francis Buddy Award, presented each year ro a graduate who personifies human and spiritual values of peace, justice and faith. "In addition ro orchestrating the medical team trips ro Georgia, Cindy is solely responsible for the financial well-being and fund raising of Global Healing," says Greg Weaver '92, who with his wife, Jessica (Dobson) Weaver '96, nominated his cousin for the award. "She is a role model for all USD students and faculty. " Basso Eaton's foray into philanthropy came innocently enough. After graduating with a degree in accounting, she took a job with accounting giant KMPG Pear Marwick in Paris, where she met her husband, Jeff. The couple moved in 1992 to Sc. Petersburg, Russia, at a rime when the regimented Soviet Union was dismantling and a chaotic new nation was emerging. There, Basso Eaton raised her first child, learned enough lan– guage to get by, and, after watching a 60 Minutes episode on the terrible condition of Russian hospitals, called up American pediatrician Jo Ann McGowan, who was then caring for Russian children through her charity, Heare to Heare. "She asked me if I'd put on a fund-raiser. I figured, 'why nor?' " Basso Eaton recalls. With a newborn and a limited grasp of Russian, she ended up staging an event featuring a baller and che Sr. Petersburg Symphony Orchestra. After Basso Eaton returned to the states, McGowan, with whom she had grown close, asked her to handle the financials for che struggling new charity, Global Healing. Ir had raised enough money and medical sup– plies to open its first pediatric cardiac ward in Tbilisi in September 1996. Basso Earon couldn't make the long trip for the opening, something she regrets to this day - her friend and mentor, McGowan, died of a stroke juse three weeks after che clinic opened. "We had no money, we were in debt and our figurehead was gone," says Basso Earon. "We could have folded. Someone had to step up to the plate." Even though she had yet to go to Tbilisi,

BY SUSAN HEROLD

as a makeshift storage unit for hundreds of pounds of donated med– ical equipment. The lase time she'll drive a forklift until long after dark, loading surgical gauze and X-ray equipment bound for a

Lasha, 11, had two heart surgeries at the Tbilisi clinic and remains close to Cindy Basso Eaton. Cindy Basso Eaton '89 (left) received the Bishop Buddy Award at December's Alumni Mass.

run-down hospital a continent away. The last rime she'll tell her three small children char mommy's too busy crying to help some dying children to read chem a bedtime story. 'Tm out there sweating, sore for days, and I say I'll never do it again," says Basso Earon, "but then I stop and chink about how chese people live. And chat's all it takes ro keep going." Through sheer determination, a little stubbornness and a lot of sweat, che 1989 graduate has kept going one of the more unusual and gutsy charities in the United Scates - G lobal Healing, a nonprofit dedi– cated to caring for children with heart defects in Tbilisi, Georgia, a struggling city in the former Soviet Union where electricity is available six hours a day and a month's pay is $20. The charity is unique in chat its goal is ro train and supply Georgian doctors to be self-

Eight-year-old Nika asked to have his photo taken after undergoing open-heart surgery.

sufficient in all types of pediatric heart sur– gery, rather than simply flying in An1erican surgeons to do the work. There are no paid employees. And it is run by a youthful board of directors - most in their 30s - without affiliation ro any religious or social groups. Its leader, Basso Earon, has no medical training. Her office is rhe telephone and her

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