Our Work

Donation Process

Our Process

Product donors send supplies to the FOW-USA warehouse space in Louisville, KY at their own expense. Sources for supplies include:

people with surplus supplies no longer needed;
facilities that can no longer use supplies or are changing to other brands;
ostomy support groups that may have supplies donated by members.

A team of volunteers gathers regularly at the warehouse to unpack the supplies, organize them, and match the donations with needs. A volunteer communicates with organizations in the receiving country, such as hospitals, clinics, cancer societies, and ostomy associations, to identify product needs and ensure that the supplies will be distributed free of charge to needy ostomates.

Some countries require that the shipping documents be stamped. Stamping requirements may be at the county and state levels of government, and others at the Federal level as well; the documents may also need stamps from the country’s consulate in the USA.

Board member Ruth Salinger, pictured here, is in the process of having documents stamped for one country, at the State Office in the Maryland, USA, capital of Annapolis.

Shipments range from 1 carton to multiple pallets and are sent to over 102
countries including cities, towns and remote areas.

FOW-USA is dedicated to providing ostomy educational resources to individuals and health care professionals, particularly through our website. We also support Lions for Stoma Care, a worldwide humanitarian program that teaches doctors and nurses from developing countries about stoma care and promotes positive attitudes about stoma patients to health authorities.

Our Mission in Action

On behalf of Saint Lucia Cancer Society, we want to express our sincere appreciation and immense gratitude for providing the Society with Colostomy bags and accompanying accessory products over the past many years. Your contribution and support have been invaluable …. THANK YOU on behalf of so many patients and families.

Lista Louis, Assistant
Saint Lucia Cancer SocietySpring 2023

Dear Ruth,

Namaste and greetings from Patan Hospital! just wanted to let you know that we have received 24 boxes of ostomy supplies. We greatly appreciate and are grateful for your continuous supply of ostomy bags and accessories to Patan Hospital. Your cooperation and collaboration are invaluable to us. Thank you once again for your generous support.

Warm regards,
Gita Kilambu, ET nurse, Patan Hospital
Nepal Patan HospitalSeptember 2023

I’m happy to inform that today we helped a old man. This patient was referred by our contact from govt hospital. He is living in a small village; belongs to a very poor family; sent him some money too with the supplies.

Thank You guys for helping. We are helping others only becoz of [FOW].
PakistanFebruary 2023

Hi,

I attached some pictures of supplies users….These people are not the only users. Some people are from outside of Addis Ababa city and we send the suppliers through their families. Some users are at their home. We are sending the supplies to these people after checking they are the real users.

Thanks for your unlimited support.

Best wishes, Bekele
Ethiopia Ostomy Association 2023

We are very happy to have received the shipment of ostomy products to our country. They are greatly needed and appreciated.
Venezuela Recipients

This is my son, Matías Daniel López, born on 03 June 2017. He suffers from Hirschsprung’s disease. He was placed with a colostomy from his second day of birth. He has had 6 surgeries, three of which were due to complications. In September 2019 after performing a colostomy closure, he had a perforation in his colon so he currently has an ileostomy. Please pray for him.
Matías MotherMustard Seed Global Evangelistic Ministries in North Carolina helped us provide much needed ostomy supplies to this young boy in Nicaragua. The family was extremely grateful for the help from the United States!

With great joy and thanks from ostomates, I am writing to express our full gratitude for your always support and care. We may not have enough words to thank you, all we can is to thank the whole team of FOW-USA and you for much you have done to us. Because of FOW-USA, we are able to see many ostomates in our clinic, coming for bags supply, information and stoma care.
Lameck Odero Stoma Care Coordinator Nyanza Kenya Ostomy Association (NKOA)

Thank You all for the care of stoma patients of Ukraine….Stoma patients, representatives of all regions of Ukraine, gather, organize seminars, conferences, we invite doctors and government representatives, with the sole purpose to help the stoma patients.
Ukraine Astom-Ilko Ostomy Group

We are very pleased to have received the shipment of ostomy products. This is a blessing to many of our poor patients.
Nepal

You are heaven sent, we don’t know what we would have done without your donation of ostomy appliances.
Zimbabwe

As you can image we are very happy to have received your help. This gives us hope and a lot of encouragement that finally we will be able to help in part of the difficulties that we face in our country.

Chile

We received the bags today. Thank you very much… We are in the process of letting our clients know that our stocks have arrived and they are relieved.

St. Lucia Cancer Society

The package of ostomy supplies arrived safely last week, and we do appreciate your help with our patients. The bags are just what they like with the open end and being able to cut to the size they need.
Sr. Daisy Hanna, Zambia