Playoff Bound

25th Annual Respect Life Banquet Held

Four years ago, Dr. Henry Smith started compiling his best landscape photography into calendars sold to raise money for a renovation project in Glen Summit. After two years, the project was paid for, so Smith stopped the fundraiser and produced calendars only for those who requested them.
But the requests kept coming in. &ldquo;When I ran out of them, people kept asking about them,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It seemed that the calendars had developed a small following, and I thought it could benefit a charity.&rdquo;
So this year, Smith decided to find a new and likely permanent recipient of the funds: the children&rsquo;s program at the John Heinz Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine on Mundy Street in Wilkes-Barre Township.
&ldquo;It doesn&rsquo;t hurt that I&rsquo;m the director of pulmonary services at John Heinz,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m familiar with the children&rsquo;s program there.&rdquo;
Though he routinely practices medicine on adults, Smith said it&rsquo;s hard to miss the young patients. The facility has more than 800 children as outpatients, said Tom Pugh, the institute&rsquo;s senior vice president. &ldquo;Children are the most underinsured or noninsured population in the nation,&rdquo; he said, noting that the center&rsquo;s program usually runs at a loss. &ldquo;We obviously depend on community support &hellip; (to) afford those programs.&rdquo;
The children&rsquo;s program offers therapy for physical, occupational, developmental, speech and language disabilities.
The institute has distributed 500 of the $10 calendars throughout its satellite locations, hoping to raise about $2,000. &ldquo;I think that&rsquo;s not going to be a problem,&rdquo; Pugh said. &ldquo;People are buying the calendars. &hellip; We would certainly like to continue this and see this grow.&rdquo;
Smith is ready for the challenge. &ldquo;I probably have enough images to do the next 10 years&rsquo; calendars right now,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s years and years of photography that I have stored away.&rdquo;
Smith has been taking photographs for perhaps three decades, he said, but many of the images come from the past eight years, during which he has taken annual trips around the state with his children, staying with friends, camping and capturing images of the Commonwealth.
Many of the images were compiled and combined with poetry for a book called &ldquo;Pennsylvania Seasons: Commonwealth Images and Poetry.&rdquo; 
&ldquo;The last few years, the calendar has really carried the book forward,&rdquo; Smith said.
Smith said he has learned to keep a camera handy for that perfect spontaneous shot. &ldquo;You keep trying to get the better images, and you want to put your best forward.&rdquo;
As far as the institute is concerned, Smith is doing just that. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s very particular about it. He works very hard with the printers,&rdquo; Pugh said. &ldquo;I think this calendar will stand up to anything you see in Barnes &amp; Noble or anywhere else.&rdquo;
To purchase a calendar

Stop by any John Heinz Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine facility, or call the Allied Services Foundation office at 570-348-1407.

A Unique Calendar Helps Kids