Janet Hamilton is Returning to Abaco… on the Wings of Angels Morrow, Ga., Nov. 3, 2004 – Clayton State Assistant Professor of Physical Education Janet Hamilton is once again returning to the Bahamian island of Abaco, this time, with the help of “angels.” Hamilton, a registered clinical exercise physiologist, first led a “Rehabilitation Team” to the Marsh Harbour, Abaco school Every Child Counts (ECC) in December 2003, providing medical assistance and training to teachers and parents of the school’s special needs children and assessing students who required physical therapy. According to Hamilton, thanks to many generous donations, the fall 2004 rehabilitation team trip is on for Nov. 15 to Nov. 22. Joining Hamilton for the second year is Connecticut occupational therapist Maital London-Levy, who will help with instructions on teaching fine motor skills, handwriting techniques, feeding skills, and sensory-integration techniques for special needs children. Hamilton will be focusing on helping the teachers utilize and adjust special positioning equipment like standing frames, specialized chairs and desks, and various wheelchair positioning aids. In addition she hopes to re-visit some of the children she saw last year in the community who are unable to attend the school due to more severe disabilities. Hamilton’s upcoming work is where the “angels,” as she calls them, come in. Specialized health care equipment such as Hamilton will be working with is neither cheap nor easily accessible on small islands in the Caribbean. However, Hamilton, made an Internet connection with Mindy Macrone, an occupational therapist in Philadelphia who wanted to know if perhaps ECC might need some equipment like walkers, wheelchairs, positioning aides and braces. “I jumped at the opportunity! The facility where she worked was in the process of cleaning out a storage closet and she said the equipment was ours for the taking,” Hamilton recalls. “Now we needed to get the equipment from the facility in Philadelphia to Florida where it could be loaded onto private planes and taken to Abaco.” Not a simple task. However, another post on an Abaco-related message board brought another miracle. Roger Brock, who happens to have a second home in Abaco, read the call for help, contacted Hamilton, and offered to not only pick up the items, but to arrange for storage until they could get the transportation link worked out. The next step in the chain came from Barry Long, who works with Hamilton’s husband, Bob. Long contacted a trucking company, Intercity Lines. The Hamiltons met up with Macrone and her husband Henry, Brock, and Marcie O’Neill (a physical therapist who works with Macrone) and spent four hours on a Saturday in Philadelphia packing crates and a pallet and readying them for the journey to Florida. The items left Philadelphia on Oct. 18 in an Intercity truck bound for Florida, where they were unpacked by two more angels who agreed to take them over to Abaco in their personal planes. “Fletcher Schiller and Pedro Garcia [the two pilots] are long time friends of the ECC school and have chipped in yet again to help this happen,” says Hamilton. “Once the items arrive in Marsh Harbour, we’ll re-assemble and clean them and get them distributed to those in need not only in the school but also the surrounding community.” Hamilton also reports that, although both hurricane Frances and Hurricane Jeanne hit Abaco, ECC founder and Director Lyn Majors reports that the school sustained little damage. “We look forward to seeing the progress at the school,” says Hamilton. “Thanks to some very dedicated volunteers from Florida, a new building has been constructed on the school grounds and will house a vocational training area for some of the older children. Life lessons are taught every day in every classroom, but in this classroom they’ll learn life skills that will enable them to move into the workforce when they complete their education at ECC. “The magic of this place lives in the hearts of the teachers and the joyous spirits of the students!” And in some angels as well.