Celebrity bartending event raised $3K for African clinic

Oct. 22, 2019 | Sarah Heinonen
sarah@thereminder.com

WEST SPRINGFIELD – Tipping your bartender is always appreciated, but tipping the guest bartenders at the Trinity Pub at the Irish Cultural Center of Western New England on Oct. 16 helped save lives. From 5 to 8 p.m. the pub hosted a local-celebrity bartending fundraiser for the Billy Riordan Memorial Clinic in Cape Maclear, Malawi.

Celebrating its 15th anniversary, the clinic was started by Mags Riordan in memory of her son, who drowned in Malawi in 1999. Riordan splits her time between Cape Maclear, also known as Chembe Village, and Dingle, Ireland, West Springfield’s sister city.

The local celebrity bartenders included author Suzanne Strempek Shea. Her book, “This is Paradise,” details Riordan’s story and her work in Malawi.

Also bartending for the night were Springfield City Councilor Tim Allen, Nuts and Bolts musician Tim Donaghue, Majestic Theater Producing Director Danny Eaton, Elms College professor Amanda Garcia, Berkshire Bank VP Business Banker Marie Lucier, New England Futbol Club’s Ben Masse, Laura McNeil and Damien Murray of The History Department at Elms College, Elms College Director of Student Engagement Collin McQuade, Billy’s Malawi Project USA Board President Suzanne Meserve, Meserve’s husband, Mark, and Kerri Sullivan of the Springfield Public Schools and the St. Patrick’s Committee of Holyoke.

Many of the people who attended the event were friends of the organizers or those bartending.

Marie Meserve, the sister-in-law of the organization’s president, attended the event and said that she has supported the clinic through various functions.

The event raised close to $3,000, said Suzanne Meserve, and Riordan received an official proclamation from West Springfield Mayor Will Reichelt.

Riordan, a psychologist by trade, began the clinic “mainly because there was nothing there,” she said. Tim Murphy, who works with Billy’s Malawi Project USA, said of Riordan, “She just went to Maclear to deliver a memorial stone and realized they needed a clinic.”

The nearest large hospital in Malawi serves approximately 1 million people and often has only one doctor on staff, Riordan said. She said there is “virtually no cancer treatment in Malawi.”

She told Reminder Publishing the story of a woman who came to the clinic with severe abdominal pain and stage-four cancer. The clinic transported her to the nearest hospital 30 minutes away, as often happens when a patient needs treatment beyond the clinic’s ability. The woman was prescribed aspirin and sent back. Riordan said they simply didn’t have the equipment, supplies, or personnel to treat her.

For about nine months of the year, Riordan lives in Maclear in a volunteer center with the doctors and nurses. There are 35 local staff and about 12 volunteer medical personnel who rotate in and out of the clinic.

Aside from the basic medical need of the community, the clinic also provides eye surgery for cataracts and does work with HIV patients. There are 1,500 patients who receive antiviral medicine from the clinic and over 500 people are tested for the disease each month.

The clinic works with the Tingathe program, a partnership between the Baylor College of Medicine Children’s Foundation-Malawi and the Malawi Ministry of Health that aims to treat the HIV positive community. Tingathe, which translates to “together we can,” is a program that combines education and best practices to manage current cases of HIV and limit new ones.

Part of the program works to ensure people stay on their medication, Riordan said. To do that, trackers are sent out into the community to find patients who have stopped coming to the clinic and convince them to continue their treatment.

The clinic, which also serves the three surrounding villages, has treated 300,000 people in just over 15 years.

The population of Maclear has increased from about 14,000 people to about 18,000 since the clinic began, Riordan said. She attributed that increase to the near eradication of infant mortality in Maclear since the clinic opened.

The clinic takes donations of medicines. Riordan said vials of morphine are particularly hard to come by and expensive.

Billy’s Malawi Project USA, the 501c3 charitable arm of the clinic, began in West Springfield when people heard Riordan telling her story while trying to fundraise at the Big E. Since then, the organization has grown through friends and word-of-mouth.

“Most of the people who have been supporting the charity have been here since day one,” Riordan said. “Americans are very generous.”

Riordan is hoping that generosity will continue. The clinic’s operation costs are $200,000 per year and she is looking for a benefactor, whether an individual or corporation, to sponsor the clinic for one year.

“They can come visit the clinic,” Riordan said, to see their money in action. “There’s got to be somebody.”

Donations to the Billy Riordan Memorial Clinic can be made by visiting billysmalawiprojectusa.org.

Share this: