Docs paint! Nurses garden! Kaiser's Day of Service on MLK Holiday

Dr.Beth Robie, an Ob-Gyn at Campbell was scraping peeling paint off a classroom door. Across the breezeway, Dr. Raj Bhandari, a Neurologist at San Jose was using blue tape to mask off school windows in preparation for new paint. Nearby, Dr. Brian Misset, a cancer specialist, was dabbing paint onto the wall around a water fountain, and at the same time, Dr. Todd Dray, an ENT specialist at Santa Clara was using a pitchfork to clear weeds out of the overgrown Mathson Middle School student garden in San Jose, CA.
“We have Kaiser Permanente physicians, surgeons, nurses, all sorts of caregivers and administrators here,” explained Dr. Susan Smarr, an Ob-Gyn and Physician-in-Chief of the Kaiser Permanente Santa Clara Medical Center. “Fixing up Mathson Middle School is our 2015 MLK Day Project.”
Indeed, none of the hundred-or-so Kaiser Permanente caregivers at Mathson was wearing a white lab coat or stethoscope: soon-to-be-dirty jeans and tee-shirts were de rigeur, and almost everyone was wearing this year’s light blue Kaiser Permanente MLK “Day of Service” work shirt offered to all the volunteers.
Everyone, that is, except Dr. Dray, who is such a regular volunteer worker on Kaiser Permanente’s MLK Day of Service that he has many years’ worth of the souvenir work shirts. He was wearing last year’s burgundy-colored shirt as he and others worked to clean up the Mathson school gardens.
“This is a huge part of Dr. King’s legacy,” says Dr. Smarr, “and we’re making it a day on, not a day off to give back to the community.”
And part of Kaiser Permanente’s mission is to improve the health of the communities where the physicians and nurses work. And this year’s “Day of Service” theme, “Kaiser Cares 4 Schools” had volunteers at dozens of schools in Northern California, painting, gardening, and repairing on a day when the kids, for the most part, were away.
“I think when the children come back to class tomorrow, they’re going to be jazzed to see the work we did improving Mathson,” says Dr. Smarr. “Dr. King noted that education is part of the community’s health.”
Actually, some of the Mathson students had come to school on the holiday and were participating in the painting, patching, and gardening. In effect, the children were getting an object lesson from the Kaiser Permanente doctors.
“They’re excited to see that people really care about them and their school,” said Mathson Principal Oscar Leon.
Nearly a hundred Kaiser Permanente staffers from the Santa Clara and San Jose Medical Centers spent the day fixing up Mathson. Their project was aided by a group called “Hands on Bay Area,” which acts a facilitator between community needs and organizations wanting to help.