Our History of Giving Back
— And Increasing Impact

Our heritage of charitable giving goes back to the company’s founding in the 1800s. In fact, over the years, Hanger’s practitioners and associates have consistently and generously donated millions of dollars in free care and financial contributions to a variety of causes, including hardship cases in their own communities.

This record of dedication and service is inspiring; however, admirable though these individual efforts were, they have generally been fragmented. It was through a series of international missions that the idea of establishing the Hanger Ivan R. Sabel Foundation was formed.

Seeing What Works

In the mid-1990s, Van Sabel and several other Hanger professionals traveled on a unique service mission to Vietnam, where they visited Cần Thơ, a city southwest of Ho Chi Minh City. There they volunteered their time and expertise to help fit former ARVN (South Vietnamese) soldiers wounded during the Vietnam conflict, but who had ‘fallen through the cracks’ in the years since, unable to access prosthetic and orthotic care and services. In addition to serving these individuals, they also donated equipment and resources to help establish a clinic. Over time, and with support from several other organizations, that clinic eventually grew into a self-sustaining facility — and in the process, became one of the models for the work of the Foundation.

More recently, a team of Hanger employees traveled in 2005 to war-torn Afghanistan during a relative lull in the fighting, to help a variety of civilians who had been maimed in the conflict. In particular, the team treated several women, whose medical needs are generally neglected (at best) in the nation’s culture. Since then, escalating violence has prevented a return trip to provide necessary follow-up care.

Taking On Bigger Challenges

Reflecting on these and many similar missions that Hanger employees have undertaken in countries such as Romania, Peru, Turkey, and China. Mr. Sabel determined that there was an urgent need to formalize and improve upon the effort. Specifically, he wanted to develop an initiative that could focus on strategic, more sustainable interventions — not merely fitting a group of individuals in need of artificial limbs, but helping a community lacking such traditions or capabilities develop the expertise, technology and means to operate its own clinic on an ongoing basis.

In addition to serving as a central and highly efficient point for financial donations, the Foundation is seeking to partner with other organizations, such as Physicians for Peace and Project Hope, that are already involved in similar activities. We are also hoping to accomplish our goals with support from our suppliers, managed care (Linkia) network members and others.

By focusing our resources and efforts this way, we will create the synergy needed to become a major force in the charitable delivery of prosthetic and orthotic services and care for those in need in the U.S. and around the world. Most importantly, our two-pronged approach is designed to not merely meet the needs of patients today, but to build ongoing, sustainable solutions that will need less and less support moving forward, and empower communities that we have helped to take care of themselves in the future.