International Aid closing mission store, expanding medical equipment distribution

Wed, May 14, 2008    to del.icio.us

SPRING LAKE TOWNSHIP — Bittersweet changes are looming for International Aid — according to the agency's president and chief executive officer, Myles Fish.

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The nonprofit Christian medical and disaster relief organization will close its mission store at 17011 W. Hickory St. by the end of the month to make way for other ventures — water filters and medical equipment distribution.

The change will result in the loss of 18 jobs, according to Fish.

"You look at those two opportunities (water filters and medical equipment) and you compare that to one of our legacy programs — which is the mission store — and you have to look at where you're going to get the greatest impact toward our mission work," Fish said. "Any way I slice it, it's very exciting about the positives with the changes. We're excited about the possibilities, but sad about the end of something here. And it's sad we had to let people go."

The mission store primarily served international missionaries. People would drop by the store and pick up personal care items, such as toothpaste and aspirin, for typically week-long mission trips, Fish said.

International Aid was founded in the 1970s with the help of local resident Chuck Rycenga. The organization incorporated in 1980, providing health-related and disaster relief worldwide.

"The store was helpful and convenient, but it's not mission critical for anyone," Fish said. "Whereas the water filter is mission critical."

International Aid's warehouse operations, storing equipment and supplies for disaster relief, will continue.

"We have some extraordinary opportunities that have opened up to us that have far greater potential for reaching our missions," Fish said. "After two years of planning, we decided to focus our efforts on water filters and medical equipment."

More than 1 billion people in the world have unsafe drinking water, according to Fish. International Aid joined forces with Grand Rapids-based Cascade Engineering to produce a lightweight filter that is claimed to remove 100 percent of parasites and 98 percent of bacteria from water.

"This reduces the incidents of diarrhea in children by 50 percent," Fish said. "The filter was invented about 10 years ago, but we — in the course of the last two years — acquired a patent to make it out of plastic. Previously it was made out of cement. It cuts the cost and makes it more portable. Now it weighs about 7 pounds so you can easily carry it into the home that's going to use it."

International Aid's medical equipment distribution has also kicked into high gear.

"We've become the foremost distributor of refurbished medical equipment," Fish said, adding that General Electric and Johnson & Johnson corporations donate all their used goods to the Spring Lake Township-based agency. "We used to collect one item at a time. We're able to do whole hospitals now with everything from bedpans to X-ray machines."

Fish said rising fuel costs contributed to the decision to close the mission store.

"The store has been wonderful," he said. "It has introduced us to missionaries from all over the world. But the attendance and customer flow has decreased a lot because of fuel costs. We're not getting people driving up from Iowa, for example. We concluded we couldn't do the store anymore and it's not cost-effective to manage our own fleet of trucks.

"The store is not coming back, the trucks are not coming back, but we'll still be here," Fish added.

On the Net:

www.internationalaid.org