Members of BUILD staff were in good spirits Monday as they watched their four mobile medical units carried away on 18-wheelers to be taken to Houston, where they will remain until shipped overseas.
BUILD, a student-run organization that conducts on-campus construction projects, has worked for the last eight weeks to build the units to be shipped to impoverished areas with limited accessibility to hospitals. The units are insulated and include a procedure room and places for medical examinations.
Chief executive officer Drew Allen said each of the four pods was named after Bonfire victims, but out of respect for the families the names will not be announced until later.
Luke Strother, petroleum engineering senior and chief of operations, said four pods will be sent to Haiti, Honduras, Bolivia and Colombia and a fifth filled with supplies will be placed at the Riverside campus to be used for future BUILD projects.
Strother said getting the pods to Houston didn’t cost the organization any money because of the efforts of its volunteers and sponsors.
“All the 18-wheelers, even the forklift guy, are all volunteers,” Strother said. “So we didn’t have to pay a dime for this.”
The pods will remain in Houston until Jan. 1, when organizations from the four countries will arrange to have them shipped overseas. BUILD staff members will make one trip to Houston to make finishing touches to the pods.