Long time Club member, Raj Champanerie invited the Club out to

the Shrine Medical Center for Children in Pasadena for a private tour

of their state of the are facility.  Raj is a long time member of the Shriners

which is an incredible organization that has over 350,000 members

worldwide.  The Shrine Medical Center in Pasadena is one of their newest

facilities and was purpose built with the best of the best and designed to

serve children and their families.  Not only do they provide all their services for the

children at no cost to the families, but they do so on a one to one basis

often customizing their services specific to each and every child.

Raj out front of this beautiful medical center

Glenn and Stephanie

Scott and Laura

Shahar and Lia

Ben and Lisa

We broke up into two groups and got a tour of the entire facility.   One of their proudest achievements

is that their cutting edge technology allows them to perform procedures as an out patient service.

This is huge for a young child who is scared, disabled and faced with a mentally extreme

circumstance that they cannot control.  Minimizing their time in the hospital and getting them

back home to their comfort is essential to their care.

They have their own prosthesis department which allows them to customize them for each

child.  They can do custom graphics and special function items depending on the need/desire

of the child

Physical therapy room.  Imagine seeing your child getting up out of a wheelchair and walking

for the very first time......it is a room where miracles happen.

Every aspect of the Medical Center is designed around making the children feel comfortable

Raj inside of a very high tech state of the art x-ray machine

One of their robots

After the awesome tour, we had lunch.

Laura and Scott

Lori, Raj, Yosi and Bryan

Aaron, Judy, Joanne, Spencer and Jim

Angel, Azi, Melissa, Glenn and Stephanie

Ben and Lisa

Melissa and Gary

Shahar, Lia, Jeff and Herb

We also got to celebrate Raj's 60th birthday with him

We had a bunch of leftover food, so we loaded it up in the Vipers and cruised down the street to

the Ronald McDonald house to help feed some of the families staying there.

At the end of the day, you can't take it for granted how blessed we all are to be part of the Viper

Family and to be able to see what others do for those in need helps to inspire and motivate us

to do more for those around us.   It was a great day that won't soon be forgotten.

Thank you for sharing this with us Raj and wishing you a very Happy Birthday !!