HealthLink: A Link to Hope

On September 21, 2016, HealthLink celebrated its 15th Anniversary at Twining Hall in Feasterville in the company of over 100 friends - both old and new. One of the highlights of the evening were words from a HealthLink patient about the profound affect HealthLink has had on her during a difficult time in her life. You can read the full transcript here.

Tonight I want to tell you why HealthLink’s work is so important. I want to tell you why a visit to HealthLink is not just clean teeth for another six months, or a filled cavity. Those are very important, but, perhaps, even more important is HealthLink’s role in the hope that it gives for those of us who are striving as hard as we can to better ourselves and our families. Let me tell you part of my story—my journey from being a confident, bright, young mom with a middle-class upbringing to being immersed in poverty and inches from despair. As I tell my children, “Don’t worry, the story will have a happy ending.”

When I grew up in my middle class lifestyle; when I married an intelligent, young man; when we both went to graduate school; I thought we had a bright outlook in life. We were not daunted by the prospect of tight finances in graduate school; we were prepared to make sacrifices for our long-term goals. We had hope in our hearts.

Graduate school was challenging and anxiety ridden, but it was always hopeful. I learned some important things—and many things that I now realize were not quite so important as I thought they were at the time. But the chief lesson I learned was the importance of persevering through difficult situations, at which I discovered I was quite good.