BY AMBER SMITH

Brooke Fraser, a 20-year veteran nurse from Elbridge who works in the Upstate Golisano Children‘s Hospital, saves her days off for mission trips to countries in need.

Last summer she travelled to Ethiopia and spent two weeks helping establish a cancer center for children in the city of Jimma, 220 miles southwest of the capital of Addis Ababa.

She has also volunteered in El Salvador, accompanied each trip by one of her three sons.

Fraser began her mission work four years ago when she decided she wanted to step beyond her comfort zone and to understand and appreciate another culture.

She was inspired by the Mahatma Gandhi quote: “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”
Seeing poverty is difficult, she says, “because you can only make a small difference. You can‘t fix everything. You can‘t give everybody all the clean water and food and money that you wish you could give them. You can‘t eradicate disease.

“But I‘m thankful for the small part that I can do.”

This article appears in the spring 2017 issue of Cancer Care magazine. Hear a radio/podcast interview  with Fraser  about her overseas nursing work.