Published by Englewood Independent on June 22, 2011

By Marilyn McConahay

For the Independent

mp.mcconahay5@gmail.com

Fred Allen of Tipp City knows how to drum up support for his major life project, an orphanage for girls and a nearby school in Kongatuny, Uganda. With dedicated enthusiasm, he promotes it to everyone he meets.

The project, Uganda Children’s Rescue, operates under the 501c3 organization called The Loving Arms of Christ Children’s Rescue (TLACCR), founded in 2008 and based in Tipp City.

Now, something else needs to be added to the growing community – a medical center.

Allen and Rich Kellogg of Englewood recently managed to catch the attention of Jim Taylor, owner of Troy Ford, who has taken an interest in helping to add that new element.

“Helping people is my passion in life. I’m so blessed to serve in this. What I want is to accomplish something my children can carry on after I’m gone,” Taylor said.

The Taylor Family Medical Center, as it will be known, will consist of six elements, including a birthing room and a malaria ward, as well as a family unit, a pediatric clinic, a surgery area and a dentistry unit,” Kellogg said

Kellogg’s daughter, Laura Kellogg, who has also become committed to the project, pulled together a fund-raiser meeting that was held June 17 at Company 7 BBQ in Englewood.

At that meeting, Kellogg made a presentation to around 45 people in attendance about the vision of the medical center.

Regarding funding for the project, Kellogg said Taylor has issued a challenge for matching funds to a $10,000 donation he felt compelled to contribute. Taylor already has brought his employees at Troy Ford on board with payroll deductions.

Allen and Kellogg invited Taylor to attend a meeting at their “official office” in Tipp City – Burger King – around two months ago, to talk about the concept.

“The Holy Spirit really touched my heart at that meeting,” Taylor said. “Two days later, I thought that for so little money, what a difference it would make in what Fred can do.”

During that meeting at Burger King with Taylor, Allen described a typical scene in Uganda where a child was receiving a malaria drip.

“Across from the child, a small piglet was lying nearby. It just isn’t sanitary or healthy for the children. I’ve buried children with malarial encephalitis,” Allen said.

That’s what got to Taylor and led to his commitment to the medical center

Girls often die in childbirth in Uganda, Allen said last Friday evening at the fund-raiser as he explained that many young girls there can expect to have a terrible life characterized by being sold to a husband for an agreed number of cows or some other commodity. Often they
are later discarded by the husband.

Allen’s orphanage is designed to help spare young girls from such a life. The “Tree School,” where the boys and girls who attend are currently meeting outside under a tree for lack of an enclosed building, also will help prepare children for a better life, either through further schooling when they leave or by learning a trade, such as sewing.

But something has been missing – a nearby place to go for medical care.

“I had been planning one and so had Fred. I already had a diagram, so we decided to do it together,” Kellogg said.

The new medical center will have six elements, including a birthing ward and a malaria ward as well as a family unit, a pediatric unit, a surgery area and a dentistry unit, Kellogg said.

Kellogg said he has a passion for helping children and his involvement up to now has been a mission for youth groups in Haiti in the 1980s and in Brazil in the 1990s.

“For the last few years, I’ve been focusing on Uganda. This is where I want to spend the rest of my life,” Kellogg said

It was three years ago that Kellogg and Allen met and now they have decided they can accomplish even more by joining forces.

“Fred was just pushing, pushing and pushing. He eats, breathes and sleeps Uganda all the time. When I saw what he was doing over there, I couldn’t believe how much he can accomplish with so little funding. He digs wells, builds structures and grows food. I decided we needed to
come together,” Kellogg said. Other people present at the dinner will be able to make contributions in other ways as well.

“We are looking to people for expertise and ideas. For instance, Dr. Rosalind Jackson, an OB/GYN medical doctor at Sycamore Medical Center in Kettering, will create for us an inventory of what we will need for the birthing room. I was looking for a dentist who can write an inventory
of what we will need. Now we have Tom Williams, a dentist from Englewood,” Kellogg said.

Kellogg said the group is dedicated to this cause and will not stop until they have what they need.

“We’ll keep on telling our story, with our motto, ‘Take the First Step, Save a Child,” he said.

Anyone interested in making donations to the medical center or becoming involved can contact Kellogg at 937-776-9156.