A project hundred 55 years ago and the San Diego region 55 years ago is now in 16 countries that helps leave the peoples every year. Lead San Diego honored him with a visionary award for cross region building earlier this month. Marks our interviewed him about the nonprofit. What inspired you to found project concern international 55 years ago. I ventured across the border who suggested that we visit a clinic up in the canyons with one of the impoverished barrios of the Grant City and met [Indiscernible] he started a school in a three room frame cottage a clinic in the afternoon. She presented he was very ill children correct? One night I had two kids with severe bilateral pneumonia. They were cyanotic and purple and gasping for breath. They were dying. The little boy would not respond to any of the reference that we are taught to make to find out the level of how deep is there,. He would not respond. The mother was in tears she thought they were dying I thought they were dying I think if they had any awareness they knew they were dying so we had an emergency but no emergency room. We used our creativity and imagination and built a steam tent with an old sheet and some pipe and a kerosene burner and pretty soon we had a concentration of warm mist in which to put the children any given doses of penicillin and sponge their bodies because the figures were so high. Their intercostal muscles were weak -- retracting that is sort of the end of the opportunity for people to breathe and keep enough oxygen in their lungs to stay alive. They were in extreme condition. About midnight they began to breathe more easily. The mother smiled through her tears and I had a tear in my eye as well. I went home that night to Coronado feeling 10 feet tall. That night I went from being a doctor to being a physician. I had an epiphany Mike the heavens opened up when I read John Donne's word I realized what had happened and that if those two children had died part of me would have died I think at some time in my life I would've been aware of that. The mantra for PCI and the project began at that moment is that I need them as much as they need me to PCI is now in 16 countries. Last year they help more than 19 million people. If you would visit our headquarters here at 5151 Murphy Canyon Road you would know almost immediately the enthusiasm and talent and excitement and sense of commitment that this generally young population of coworkers where we are growing and why we have grounds for the last 50 years. It seems like the enthusiasm is just infectious and that may be one of the reasons you were able to grow and enjoy the -- success you have had for this half-century. That is one of the reasons they have tolerated me is through the 55 years I have been enthusiastic. That is in part due to this concept and syncope that we are of one body and I am enthusiastic about it. I think people are basically selfish but interested in themselves and what a combination that is. Project concern has a variety of events have use some up what the organization does? The mission is to work with families and communities to enhance health and hunger and overcome hardship. The program started 55 years ago as a medical we did not have all of these other things that make it more comprehensive and effective but we have feeding programs I don't know how many tens of thousands of children with it every morning in Guatemala but it is a vast number. We overcome hardships and have the program called women empowered and it is one of the grandest things that has ever been conceived by the organization. We are finding women in villages around the world trip and forth. This is uniform. It relies on federal funding and grants and we have heard a lot about President Trump and Republicans in Congress talking about severe budget cuts to things like diplomacy and projects like yours. Are you concerned about cuts going forward here and the impact in the organization. Of course we are. We got along before we have government programs. We will get along afterwards. It will take some transition. They must truly see the benefit that foreign aid and investing in other countries has with programs such as the ones you run correct? That which is kind of a climax and a maximum effect when they have a chance to go to those countries and see the effect for themselves To come back oftentimes with an epiphany affect. It changes their lives They are forever grateful and forever committed to this kind of work. I think in terms of a turn that I have learned the end of foreignness comes to a point where we are in our unity and there are no longer foreign people. We see each other as part of this land and their land and it is our land. I know that sounds overly ambitious but it is what I in terms of my part as a contribution I will encourage everybody working with us to move toward the end of foreign mass.
In 1961, Coronado pediatrician Dr. James Turpin drove across the U.S.-Mexico border to volunteer at a medical clinic in Tijuana. While there Turpin saved the lives of two children he said were dying of pneumonia. The experience led him to have an epiphany.
"I knew then my life's work needed to be about fighting disease and poverty among the world's most vulnerable people," Turpin said.
Turpin founded Project Concern International. Now, more than a half-century later, the nonprofit works in 16 countries. The organization's goal is to help 20 million people each year by 2020.
LEAD San Diego honored Turpin, now 90, with a Visionary Award for cross-border region building this month.
On Wednesday's Midday Edition, Turpin discusses the work of Project Concern International.
