Good night everyone. I am very happy to be able to salute you and congratulate you for this magnificent help that you are doing here in Guerrero. I don’t know how I can thank God the opportunity that he gave me for being able to come to this place to give you all a  thank you message.

THANK YOU

I am glad to tell you that I feel very privileged for being one of the first surgeries that you performed in Guerrero together with the Rotarians from this city.

I had a congenital problem and I was born with an upper lip deformity.

I never thought that there was anything that could help me or that could be done to me because my family was very poor and we were always out of money for dressing and for food, and I knew that they were not going to have any money to pay for a surgery.

I am convinced and I will like to thank all of you that make these clinics possible and accessible to all of us that need this kind of help. Thanks to Ms. Eloisa Robledo who was the president of the Guerrero Rotary Club at that time, I really wish health and prosperity to her and to Mr. Guillermo Gonzalez and to all the beautiful people that always participate on this kind of clinics.

I really want to thank you all in the name of all those that have been served and operated or that have had a benefit from this great work that you do. I know that many of us are very grateful but for many reasons not all of us have the opportunity to express our gratitude to you.

Now ladies and gentleman, I want to tell you the story on how I got to the clinic to have surgery with you.

On the year 1993 Ms. Eloisa told me that there was going to be a Plastic Surgery clinic that the Guerrero Rotary club was bringing and that there were some chances for me to have surgery. I didn’t believe her because I thought that those kinds of opportunities were for others and because I thought that I was very far from being one of the lucky ones that had a chance of a surgery.

In the month of May 1993, Eloisa told me that everything was ready and that I was going to have surgery on May the third. That day I walked out of my humble house (which is also your house) with nothing but three coins in my pocket, and with the hope of having that problem fixed, that problem that was causing such a big psychological damage to me, and guess what after 3:00 PM I was out of the OR and I remember that when I saw myself on the mirror I couldn’t believe what I was looking at. My lips were on the right position, same position where I dreamed they could be for so many years.

I couldn’t stand it because I couldn’t believe it and I cried, not only for the happiness but for the gratitude to God that created us and that illuminated me on that moment.

I want to make a special recognition this wonderful night and that goes for Dr. Scott Yarish. I may not know how to thank you with my words, but I do know how to thank you with my heart Dr. Yarish.

You participated with God so that I could finish with my suffering and with my problem. That problem that I thought was going to be with me for the rest of my life. In those days, the cost of my surgery was so high that I was never going to have all that money together, not even today.

I came back home and from that moment and forever, I will always be grateful to God and to all of you “my friends” for the great favor that you did to me.

Dr. Yarish please receive this present that my family and I offer you as a sign of gratitude. And we want you to know that you will always be in our heart and in our prayers.

I want to tell you my great friend that a good friend is always loyal, and when the bad times came a good friend is like a brother.

And to you my Rotarian friends thank you for helping me and for allowing me to be here today to express and to show my gratitude.

Dr. Yarish, You gave me a life.

God Bless You
Carlos Nevarez
September 29, 2006