Leadership Wilkes-Barre Video Kinections Project Group Makes Connecting Easy
By: Jayne Ann Bugda
Updated: February 14, 2013
Leadership Wilkes-Barre Class of 2012-13 project group, Video Kinections, is well on their way to providing some area residents an innovative approach to connect with loved ones.
Based on the personal experiences described by group member Tony McGinley, the team decided that there was a need to keep families in touch with each other when a loved one is in a nursing home and family members and friends are too far away to visit in person. Video Kinections will be providing four area nursing homes with mobile carts and touch-screen computers that enable an instantaneous connection through the use of audio/video conferencing. With a simple touch of a picture, the patient at any of the equipped nursing homes will be able to see and speak with family and friends that they may not have had the ability to do in the past.
The carts, donated by InterMetro Industries Corp., will be built to include the computers programmed with CanConnect software. The software rights were purchased by the group and are an easy to use solution that works with the most commonly used video conferencing interfaces. Video Kinections goal is to donate carts and computers to four nursing homes in the Wyoming Valley.
In order to make this effort a success, the Video
Kinections group is looking for help in the area of cash and in-kind donations.
They will also be hosting a mixer to be held at Brews Brothers West located at
75 Main Street, Luzerne, on Thursday, March 14, 2013. Tickets can be purchased
in advance for $20. The cost covers the purchaser's attendance to the mixer on
March 14th at Brews Brothers West between 5PM and 8PM and also gives the
purchaser a chance to win the use of a luxury box for a hockey game at Mohegan
Sun Arena complete with fourteen tickets, four parking passes, food and
beverages. Celebrity bartenders will be on-hand and will auction other items throughout the event. Tickets for chances
on the luxury box only are being sold for $10 each; the winner will be announced
at the event on March 14th. The luxury box for the evening was
donated to Video Kinections by UGI Utilities, Inc.
Anyone interested in
donating or purchasing tickets should contact Roderick Blaine at 570.826.0510 x
213 or via email at: vkinection@gmail.com
Pictured from left are team members Attorney Lars Anderson, Rich Secor, Megan Ratchford, Tony McGinley, Jill Laing and Joanne Powell with a sample computer and cart. Absent from photo is team member Rod Blaine.
(Information from Video Kinections-Leadership Wilkes-Barre Class 2013)
