Hospital Sisters Mission Outreach will celebrate its first anniversary Sept. 28 with an open house for the public to see how the recycling and redistribution effort of medical equipment and supplies is having a global impact. The open house will be held from 5 to 8 p.m. at the Mission Outreach, located on the Franciscan Motherhouse grounds, on Springfield's far northeast side. Tours will be given of the 23,000-square-foot warehouse, which is filled with healthcare items no longer used in this country but of great need in the developing world.

"In the last fiscal year, Mission Outreach received $2.7 million of usable medical equipment and supplies from hospitals, clinics, nursing facilities, manufacturers, and distributors from Illinois, Wisconsin, and Missouri," said Bruce Compton, Mission Outreach president/CEO. "In turn, we sent items to more than 25 countries around the world, including China, Philippines, Russia, and even here in the United States."

Mission Outreach was named a preferred partner of the U.S. Navy's Project Handclasp, enabling the Springfield Franciscan ministry to provide humanitarian assistance via U.S. Naval vessels; like its shipment of an ambulance to Buenos Aires via USS Pearl Harbor.