Yogen Früz Sponsors Former Employee's Trip to Help Under Privileged

In 2002, Sandy was employed at the Yogen Früz stand at the Canadian National Exhibition (know as the Ex) which runs for 2 weeks every summer in Toronto. In fact, it was her first job. She was 14 and very eager to earn money to help her single-parent family with expenses. When the Ex finished, she stayed with Yogen Früz and was employed at the Yorkdale Shopping Centre location where she stayed until she went to Hamilton to attend McMaster University to study nursing.

Sandy later explained, “Yogen Früz gave me a stable part-time position with incredible flexibility and encouragement when it came to my education. I was able to focus on my studies and participate in extracurricular activities, while working part-time. As a result, I graduated as an Ontario Top Scholar.”

As part of the nursing program, she had the opportunity to travel to Nicaragua to train and help diagnose and treat people with illnesses. Yogen Früz stepped in to sponsor Sandy for her trip with Global Medical Training.

Her travel started at the beginning of May 2009 and toured three cities, Managua, Masaya, and Granada. Arriving in each city, they would set up free medical clinics in rural areas where it was most difficult to obtain medical services. “There was always an influx of patients ranging from newborn babies to elderly grandparents,” said Sandy.

In the cities where they visited a hospital, the landscapes were truly breathtaking but beneath the mountainous backdrop and thriving wilderness, there was a feeling of desperation when you entered a hospital due to overflowing emergency rooms, scarce resources, and lack of available medical equipment. Sandy remarks, “every year the hospital loses many lives because they do not have a ventilator to keep patients breathing. Due to this lack of equipment, nurses must pump air into the patients’ lungs around the clock, taking 12-hour turns.”

There was one case in particularly that broke Sandy’s heart. One of Sandy’s patients was a single mother with two children. She was abandoned by her husband after the youngest daughter was born with a cognitive deficit and recently lost her oldest son in a car accident. She was a street vender and made very little money and couldn’t afford to be away from her business. She arrived with a crushing heart pain, a severe headache, extremely high blood pressure, and radiating numbness in her left arm – all symptoms of a heart attack. The onsite doctor explained the diagnosis to the woman and urged her to go to the hospital immediately. She said, “but how will I sell my goods? If I go to the hospital, I won’t be able to make money for my family.” The doctor replied, “if you do not go to the hospital today, you might not see tomorrow.” Sandy describes, “the woman left to go to the hospital with a despairing expression in her eyes. She was in such a predicament – her life or her family – but what was ironic about this situation was, her life and her family are one in the same.”

But through it all, Sandy felt like her and her team made a difference. The services they provided helped hundreds of people and there is no price you can put on the health and wellbeing of others. “Whether it was simply giving patients multivitamin pills, toys for the children, or lending an open ear to listen to their stories, all of our patients showed a tremendous amount of gratitude,” said Sandy.

“My trip was too short,” Sandy exclaimed. “I wish that I could have stayed in Nicaragua for at least a month or two!” Not only to help the people because there were many in need of medical attention and not enough resources, but to learn more about the people, the culture, and the language. “It’s very true when they say you can’t really learn a language until you live in an area that speaks it. Before this trip, I could not speak a word of Spanish to save my life. However, after being entrenched in the culture and language, I was forced to learn it,” explained Sandy.

Yogen Früz would like to thank Sandy for her hard work in Nicaragua and we wish her all the best in her career.