Area resident selected for caring award
To the editor:
Senator and former Majority Leader Robert J. Dole recently announced the five adults and five youth winners of the 2009 Caring Awards. Port Charlotte resident Mark Asperilla, M.D., is one of the select few to be honored in Los Angeles on Oct. 13 at the Caring Awards ceremony.
Dr. Asperilla is the founder of ACCESS Care and has devoted his life to providing free medical treatment and supplies to care for thousands of underserved people in the U.S. and other countries such as Peru, Ecuador and Guatemala. Also, another Caring Award honoree, the Dalai Lama will be recognized at the same ceremony with a Mother Teresa Lifetime Achievement Award (accepted either in LA or at another time convenient to him).
Dr. Asperilla grew up in the Philippines where his country and family instilled in him “the art of giving and of helping out people in need.” After moving to Port Charlotte, he was struck by the amount of people in need and began establishing various organizations to help people with disabilities, minority youth, migrant workers and the poor.
Since moving to the United States from the Philippines 20 years ago, Dr. Asperilla has devoted his life to providing free medical treatment and supplies to care for thousands of needy persons in the U.S. and countries such as Peru, Ecuador and Guatemala.
Past Caring Award winners include former President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn, chimpanzee researcher Jane Goodall, Reverend Billy Graham, and Maya Angelou, among others.
The Caring Institute’s mission is to promote the values of caring, integrity and public service. It was founded in 1985 by Val J. Halamandaris after a meeting with Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Mother Teresa said that there was a poverty of the spirit in the developed world which was much worse than the poverty of the body seen in the third world and directed Halamandaris to do something about it. Halamandaris put in place an awards program and a system for identifying people who give back to society in extraordinary ways and holding them up as role models to be identified by others. The Caring Institute is a nonprofit 501 (c)(3) charitable organization.
Kris Oleson
Caring Institute