Why not send Cameron a birthday gift?

Cameron Carlyle is a junior at The Villages Charter High School in Florida this fall. Her birthday is September 16, and she'd like a gift from you. No need to buy her an iPhone or a Jeep. She just wants cash to send to her friends at Nkawie Government Hospital near Kumasi, Ghana. Two summers ago, she and her Mom volunteered there as part of Projects Abroad. Cameron admits she didn't enjoy life in Ghana at first, but it grew on her. " There's no pavement, no air-conditioning and no toilets," she said, "but the people make up for it. I gave a little girl a pencil and she started to cry because she was so happy. From then on, I had the greatest time in my life." But one thing bothered her at the hospital where she worked.

                                                                       Cameron Carlyle             photo by Bill Mitchell, Daily Sun

When a mother in labor needs an emergency C-section, and this happens three or four times each day, she must be rolled on a gurney outside and down a stone path to another building a football field away. So Cameron decided to expand the maternity ward. The new building, which hospital officials named the Cameron Ausley Carlyle Maternity Theatre, contains an operating room plus additional beds, a bathroom, a scrub room, a nurses' station and a room to hold an incubator for premature babies. Last September Cameron asked for donations instead of birthday gifts and received over $1,000. Her Web site, "Cameron Cares," raised $4,320 in less than one week toward her goal of $16,000, and checks keep coming in. The new facility is built, but not yet fully utilized. Even so, when Cameron returned to volunteer again last summer, a chief tribal member gave her the title "Queen of Development." To see a gallery of photos of Cameron at the hospital, visit http://www.youcaring.com/nonprofits/cameron-cares-/225575  You can also use this Web page to send her a birthday gift.