On March 26, laughter and conversations of strategic planning could be heard on the lower level of Franz Hall as community members banded together for a cause bigger than themselves.
Hosted by the Operations Management Association (OMA), an annual “Helping Hands” event brought together students, staff, faculty and community members to build prosthetic hands for people around the world.
OMA works in partnership with the Ellen Meadows non-profit foundation, which supplied the LN-4 hand-building kits that volunteers used to create the “low tech” devices.
The foundation currently supplies hands to over 100 countries, with UP supplying 149 hands in total so far, according to Gary Mitchell, event organizer and professor of operations and technology management.
This event differed from a typical hand-building event, though. Since its inception, participants are instructed to build these devices using only one hand.
OMA’s Co-President Megan Ou highlights the event's global impact.
“Imagine you’re in a country with access to very little resources and you need a prosthetic,” Ou said. “You want something as simple as possible that works for you. So we assemble low-tech prosthetics, which is what [these] people need."
Mitchell began the event with a brief introduction to the activity and its potential for worldwide support. Volunteers were instructed to slip a drink koozie over one hand, which he says embodies the mission of the hand-building activity and fosters empathy among participants.
Teams were made up of groups of three to build the devices via the direction of an instruction booklet.
Between the springs, nuts, bolts and can-do spirits, people from various backgrounds held an engineering degree for the night to create fully functioning prosthetic hands for strangers across the world.
In under 60 minutes, volunteers had made 17 hands.
The event found its start in 2015 when Mitchell won a world championship for worldwide intelligence with the Lake Oswego High School’s robotics team.
Finding themselves with a platform to expand their positive influence, the team decided to use their brains for good and landed a partnership with the Ellen Meadows Foundation.
Mitchell had dreams of contributing to the cause on a larger scale, so he brought the hand-building to UP.
Despite the positivity in the room, participants were brought to tears over stories told from the perspective of people who were helped by the program. Mitchell was one of many who got teary-eyed when the topic of the real-life impact came into conversation.
“I get choked up a little bit when I think about this [event], because we’re able to do something for somebody we’ve never met, and we will probably never meet,” Mitchell said. “Just because we want to help people, we can make a difference.”
This sentiment is consistent with junior Giovanni Davila. As a management information systems major who has attended every “Helping Hands” event during his time at UP, he says the event is a social and professional development opportunity.
“It is a beautiful time where the community comes together for a really good cause,” Davila said. “I really enjoy the amount of alumni and current students that come together. It is a nice informal community meeting where you can make professional connections.”
Emily Friesen is a news reporter for the Beacon. She can be reached at friesen28@up.edu.
