By Barbi Schulick ,Company Co-Founder and Director of Sustainability

Barbi Schulick & Katherine Bramhall

I thought she was younger, by her message on the phone: a sweet, soft, yet urgent appeal. “I’m a Vermont midwife leaving in a few days for Bali to help at a prenatal clinic. I’d like to bring vitamins, they’re greatly needed. Can you help?” From the beginning there was no question in my mind that we would. Her message went on, details about the maternal mortality rate in Indonesia skyrocketing due to malnutrition. Prenatal vitamins are what can help the most.

I began calculating how many bottles Katherine might fit in her suitcase. She had explained that was the simplest way to get them through customs in this short time frame. I called her back immediately. Now it was my turn to speak into her voice mail. I told her we’d be ready with the product whenever she could retrieve it.

I didn’t meet Katherine until she returned from Bali, three weeks later, but by then I felt I knew her. While at the Bumi Sehat clinic, she sent a steady stream of e-mails to family, friends and supporters, intimate poetic entries that have since traveled the globe and come to be known as the Bali Journals. Reading them I was pulled into Katherine’s world, amazed as she coerced her way through customs, caught one baby after the other, and grabbed whatever sleep she could on her little bed under the mosquito netting.

She spared us none of the hard facts:

“In Indonesia, because of the malnutrition, women's tissues are so weak that just having a baby, no matter how well she is supported during the birth, her tissues will tear and massive postpartum hemorrhage is expected. As a result, for each birth here, they use 4 hands. Two to support mom's tissue (top and bottom) and someone to actually guide baby out in whatever way necessary.”

And she shared her heart with us, her spontaneous bonding with Robin Lim, the renowned midwife who founded Bumi Sehat (Healthy Mother Earth Foundation), her growing attachment to the village people, and her commitment to not allow her sorrow to render her useless. After attending to a woman freshly beaten by her husband, she said:

“I'm leaving the village for 24 hours. When my response at the beginning of my day is to cry, I know that my heart has reached maximum capacity and I need to leave for a bit. I never cry in these situations. I look for help. I make things happen. This morning all I can do is cry.”

The day Katherine came to New Chapter I met her in the company lobby, wondering as I hurried down the stairs, what this incredible person would look like, this courageous young lady who carried herself into the heart of depressed Bali with 100 bottles of vitamins in her suitcase. I was surprised to find a sister who reflected my fifty years, her eyes sparkling and clear, her smile hopeful, yet steady, her demeanor deep, calm and thoughtful.

In my office, she launched into a recap of her trip and described the extraordinary work Robin had done establishing the Bali clinic after the terrorist bombings and later a second facility in tsunami-hit Aceh. She thanked me over and over for what I considered a paltry donation, being limited by the dimensions of her suitcase. We discussed future plans. Could New Chapter become sole vitamin supporter of Bumi Sehat? What would it take? Soon we were giggling like ten year olds and I’d invited other members of our executive team to join us, each catching the glow.

Several trips and dozens of Bali Journals later, Katherine remains a significant force in my life. She’s a girlfriend now, a pal like many others, but unquestionably more. It’s not every day you get to know someone who took off to Iran when the earthquake hit and established a relief organization. Or someone who tears herself away from beloved husband and daughters twice a year to offer herself to a village that has become a second family. Amazingly, Katherine hates to travel. She’s a homebody. Though when she actually is home, she regularly abandons her bed in the middle of the night to receive yet another brand new being into her patient hands.

When Katherine came to speak at New Chapter, she spent much of her talk thanking everyone. She thanked the people in production for filling the vitamin bottles. She thanked the folks in shipping for sending off the orders. She thanked the finance staff for processing the paperwork. “Please don’t ever think I do this alone. Without each and every one of you my service wouldn’t be possible.”

The last time we were together Katherine and I hatched a plan to create a Vermont sister to Bumi Sehat. Katherine will organize a network of prenatal clinics in our state to supply income challenged mothers-to-be with New Chapter Perfect Prenatal and Berry Green. “I can’t believe I can do this work from my home office, she trilled…and no customs!” She named the program Vital Beginnings. It is testimony to her conviction that there is plenty of need right where we sit, in our own communities, work places, and families.

Since meeting Katherine my understanding of service has deepened. Her courage and focus has settled into me and is beginning to teach me how to be my own version of her. This won’t mean flying off to Bali. Not only because I believe I may be an even bigger home body than she, but because we are each meant to give in a different way. We need to find out what that is. That is most what I’ve learned from her. Maybe you pack the boxes, maybe you get on the plane when you’d rather be in your living room, or maybe you simply sign the check. What matters is your intention. What matters is how much you listen to the stirrings in your heart.

There are many Katherine’s in the world. God knows there are countless causes who need them. And there are many more people like me and perhaps you: those of us who hold back sometimes when we could give more, who are afraid to commit ourselves, our bodies, our time, in significant ways. Here is where Katherine would say, “Believe me. If you support something with even a bit of yourself, a bit of your time, you are helping. Never doubt it. I couldn’t do this alone.”

To learn more about Katherine Bramhall, Bumi Sehat and Vital Beginnings: www.amillionmothers.org