Milwaukee VA Medical Center

Kitty Schroeder, a nurse at the Milwaukee VA Medical Center, performs a hearing test on a student on a hurricane-relief mission to the Virgin Islands.

The opportunity to help school children on a hurricane-ravaged island was a good enough reason for Kitty Schroeder to cancel her own birthday party.

Schroeder, a nurse in the Spinal Cord Injury Center at the Milwaukee VA Medical Center, was part of a volunteer group of health care and education professionals that traveled to the Virgin Islands to conduct hearing and vision screenings for public school students.

Schroeder responded to a request for participants, but did not immediately hear back, and thought she was not selected. About five days before departure, she received an email asking if she still wanted to go and had about two hours to decide.

“It was during my birthday week and I already had taken that time off,” Schroeder said. “Everybody said we’ll cancel the party, go. It’s the opportunity of a lifetime.”

The humanitarian trip in April was part of the continuing recovery efforts on the islands, which were battered back-to-back by hurricanes Irma and Maria in September.

The trip was arranged by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), of which the Wisconsin Federation of Nurses & Health Professionals (WFNHP) is a part.

Teachers on St. Croix and St. Thomas reached out to AFT to see if there was any way to help with screening the children. The request then made its way down to the local level, said Candice Owley, president of the WFNHP Local 5000 in Milwaukee.

“The question came to us, were there any nurses available to take the time off to go and participate in the screening of these thousands of children?” Owley said. “She (Schroeder) was one that immediately responded that she was able to take vacation time, or some time off, in order to go and help with this project.”

School children were extremely appreciative of the hearing and vision screening, Schroeder said.

Schroeder’s group – which included nurses, speech pathologists, hearing specialists, and teachers - worked near Charlotte Amalie West, a town in St. Thomas. Many of the schools had been badly damaged during the hurricanes.

Despite her nursing background, Schroeder had almost no experience with hearing or vision tests, but was provided training specific to the required tasks.

“We saw almost 3,000 children in five days,” she said. “What the teachers felt they needed the most was hearing and vision. Many of those children had never been to an eye doctor.”

The mission was particularly meaningful for Schroeder, who has dealt with a hearing-related disorder since childhood.

“If you can’t hear you become isolated, “she said. “You can be made fun of as a child. The same with glasses, you know, ‘Four Eyes,’ and things like that. But, I was blessed with good vision.”

Schroeder said almost everyone she with whom she came in contact was extremely appreciative, especially the children. One boy started to cry when he was told his broken glasses eventually would be replaced, which his family otherwise could not afford.

 “It proved to me that service is the key,” she said. “You have to give back to get anything out of life. It made me believe again why I became a nurse. It also made me realize I shouldn’t complain about things I want.”