Capital Region Cares Capital Region Cares 2017-2018 | Page 130

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Success story
In the
Service
of Others
A SON HONORS NOT BY Robin Epley PHOTO: Ken James
ONLY HIS PARENTS, eginald Forest, 56, an Air Force
veteran who served in Oper-
ation Desert Storm, is sitting
in a makeshift waiting room
outside a large, colorful RV
splashed with VSP logos in a parking
lot. He’s waiting patiently for his glasses
to be ready, and will only have to wait
about an hour. In the meantime, he can
go inside the VFW post across the lot
and get a flu shot, or be seen by a medi-
cal professional. He might stick around
for a free lunch, or get a free haircut by
the visiting barber later in the day. In
previous years, there has been a mas-
seuse inside the building too.
Today is Veterans Day, and that
means the Dr. Hunter Foundation and
the UC Davis Willow Clinic have set up
shop at VFW Post 67 in the North Oak
Park neighborhood of Sacramento,
and inside, a flurry of medical students
and doctors have come to provide care
to veterans and homeless patients.
“I was so happy to get glasses to-
day,” Forest says. He says he hears
BUT ALL VETERANS
OF SACRAMENTO
COUNTY
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CAPITAL REGION CARES 2017 | comstocksmag.com
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“‘Thank you for your service’ a lot,”
especially on Veterans Day, and the
sentiment is appreciated. “We hear it,
but it’s nice to receive some physical
gratitude,” he says. “Something we can
use.”
The Dr. Ernest and Arthella Hunt-
er Foundation was started by their son
Dr. Darryl Hunter. Ernest Hunter had
been a career Army dentist for several
decades and his son followed him into
the military medical field, becoming
a colonel in the Air Force Reserve and
a radiation oncologist at Kaiser Per-
manente in the Sacramento area. “I
named this in their honor to carry out
work that was near and dear to them,”
Hunter says.
The Veterans Day event that pro-
vides care to veterans and the local
homeless community is now in its
seventh year, he says. The VSP’s mo-
bile vision clinic is particularly useful,
Hunter says, not only because of the
conveniently quick turnaround for
glasses and much-needed vision care,