Pittsburgh-based Global Links Named Best Environmental Non-Profit in Northeast

Pittsburgh-based Global Links has been named the best environmental non-profit in the Northeast by GreatNonprofits, a California organization that rates and reviews non-profit performance nationwide for volunteers and donors.

Founded in 1989, Global Links is a medical relief and development organization dedicated to a two-fold mission of environmental stewardship and improving health in developing countries. Global Links collaborates with U.S. hospitals to redirect still useful materials away from the waste stream to public health improvement efforts in targeted countries throughout the hemisphere.

Global Links recovers over 100 tons of medical materials a year that otherwise would have ended up in landfills or incinerators. It receives donations of medical supplies from all of the major hospitals in the Pittsburgh area. The organization has also developed a vibrant and growing volunteer program, with 1,541 volunteers serving more than 6,000 hours in 2007.

Global Links has cultivated long-term relationships with the World Health Organization as well as ministries of health and hospitals and clinics in Bolivia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Honduras, Guatemala, Guyana, Jamaica and Nicaragua.

Recipient institutions in the nine focus countries receive 40-foot sea containers of carefully selected medical supplies chosen to meet their specific needs.

Recipient hospitals around the world receive an annual allotment of suture, a critical medical supply that is all too often lacking in hospitals. Global Links is the only recovery organization with a dedicated suture program in the United States.

Global Links fulfills requests for medical supplies from individuals, organizations or institutions in the Pittsburgh area who travel to developing countries to provide medical assistance. It supports 40-50 such trips every year.

Learn more at www.globallinks.org.