How I came to Support ICSF

A burn victim, before and after ICSF surgery.

It's interesting how a chance encounter can result in a lasting relationship.  Most of you know that I donate the profits from my photography to the International Children's Surgical Foundation.  What you don't know is how that came to be.

A few years ago, my oldest brother, Roger, was unconscious and literally on his death bed in his apartment in Boise, ID.  My sister Margo and I were able to go and sit with him that last week of his life.  During that time, a number of Roger's friends came by to pay their respects, bring us meals, and keep us company.  Two of them were Geoff Williams and his mother, Bev.

Both Bev and Geoff considered Roger a dear friend.  Bev was one of my mother's friends, and got to know Roger during those years, and stayed in touch with him after my mother's death.  That connection led to Roger and Geoff becoming friends as well.

Well, Bev and Geoff came and spent hours with Margo and me in Roger's apartment, and in the course of those conversations we discussed our lives...and theirs.  I discovered that Geoff graduated from high school the same year I did, and he and I played basketball against each other (I grew up in Boise) for our respective high schools.

At some point in our conversations, Margo and I learned that Geoff had given up his practice as a plastic surgeon, and spent most of his savings, to establish ICSF.  He did so after an experience in Viet Nam with hundreds of mothers and their children with facial deformities. It so touched him that he decided it was his life's calling to help children like that.  Through ICSF, he now leads teams of physicians and nurses to lesser-developed countries all over the world performing facial surgeries and teaching local physicians how to do the same.

Bev, meanwhile, who thought she had long since "retired," became the secretary and treasurer of ICSF, and "runs" the day to day operation of ICSF from a small room in her home (Geoff lives there when he's home in between missions).  Neither of them takes any salary, and they scrimp and save (Geoff drives a 20-year-old Toyota) so that every possible penny can go towards ICSF's work.

After Roger died, Margo and I suggested that people who wanted to donate money in his memory give to ICSF.  We did so not only because Bev and Geoff were such good friends to him, but because we were so touched by their selfless dedication to such a wonderful cause.

Later, as I was thinking of where I should donate money from my photography (I made the decision years ago that I would give any profits to charity), it occurred to me that I had traveled to and taken pictures in many countries like those ICSF served, and had seen the beautiful children in those places, and knew how impossible it would be for them to pay for surgery of the type provided by Geoff and his teams.  By performing those surgeries for free, ICSF literally gives those children a chance at a normal life.  I couldn't think of a more worthy endeavor to support.  So that's what I've done ever since.  As an example, I placed the ad below in an underwater photography magazine as "payment" for an article I wrote:

The ad I was able to get in Underwater Photography magazine in lieu of compensation for an article I wrote for them

I encourage you to visit the ICSF website.  I think you, too, will be touched by what they do.