HOW dinner June 20 benefitting Mclaughlin

The Porterville Helping One Woman (H.O.W.) chapter will hold a dinner at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, June 20 at the Elks Lodge, 386 N. Main St. in Porterville for Diana Mclaughlin.

The Porterville Chapter of H.O.W. honors a recipient each month whose name is drawn from nominations offered at the previous month’s dinner.

Recipients of H.O.W. are always a woman whose family is going through an irreplaceable loss, or a woman who has been through an irreplaceable loss in the past 12 months. An irreplaceable loss is defined as a catastrophic loss that cannot be recovered.

Dinner is $10 per person, cash preferred. Recipient gift is $10 minimum, cash or check only. H.O.W. attendees purchase their own meal and provide a $10 cash gift at each dinner. The monetary gift participants offer to each recipient is a wonderful supplement to help them during their time of loss. However, the overwhelming emotional and heartfelt support the organization gives its recipients is the energy behind the H.O.W. organization.

June’s recipient is Diana Mclaughlin.

Mclaughlin is a wife, mother of two sons and grandmother to four grandchildren. She retired from the Porterville Unified School District in 2014 after 37 years.

She lives with Klippel Trennauny Syndrome, a rare congenital medical condition in which blood vessels and or lymph vessels fail to perform properly.

Over the years she has had numerous bouts with cellulitis, lymphatic tumors and cysts, severe infections and substantial and even debilitating swelling of her left leg.

In March of this year, she underwent amputation of her right leg, which after total knee replacement in 2012, had continued to cause pain and infections.

While recovering in a convalescent home in Porterville, she was diagnosed with a perforated bowel and totally blocked colon in April, and has had a total of eight surgeries and the end result was a complete colostomy.

Mclaughlin has been hospitalized for eight months and is continuing treatment and rehabilitation as she recovers from these recent surgeries and learns how to function in her new version of normal to reach her goal of returning to a fullfilling life of retirement.

The H.O.W. organization envisions a world where everyone is willing to provide comfort and support to another person when they need hope restored in their life. The H.O.W. motto is, “One woman with $10 can buy another woman lunch. Ten women with $10 can buy another woman groceries. One hundred women with $10 can make a real difference in another woman’s life.”

RSVP by Monday, June 18, to howporterville@gmail.com or by calling or texting 2023598. Tickets are available for prize drawings. For those who can’t make the dinner, but want to help can do so by mailing a gift payable to H.O.W. Porterville, 729 N. Atwood St., Visalia.

H.O.W. is a nonprofit organization run entirely by volunteers and donations. To make a tax deductible donation, make checks payable to: Helping One Woman PO Box 3375, Pinedale, CA 93650.

If you would like to nominate someone for H.O.W., simply attend a H.O.W. dinner and complete the nomination form. The next month’s recipient will be selected that night.

For more information, send questions to howporterville@gmail. com or visit www. helpingonewoman.org.