Though a tumor has robbed Linda Dunlap of much of her sight, to the destitute she is a . . . : Volunteer With a Vision

A tumor that wrapped itself around Linda Dunlap’s brain stem 11 years ago took all of the vision in her left eye and the peripheral vision in her right. But the sight it left her was enough.

The 49-year-old registered nurse can still look into the eyes of children crammed into rent-by-week motel studios with families living on the fringes of existence. It’s enough sight for Dunlap to find a 26-year-old woman with cerebral palsy, living on one small bag of potato chips a day.

Ten months ago, Dunlap decided she had seen enough and took action, making weekly trips to motels and trailer parks in Anaheim and Garden Grove, where poor families carve out a bare existence.

At first, the Garden Grove resident was only able to provide a “Hello,” a smile or occasional basic medical advice. Today, after others recognized and publicized her efforts, she has volunteer help and a garage full of donated food, clothing and over-the-counter medications. Her entire operation, she said, runs out of a single file cabinet drawer and an answering machine.

“I always knew I had to do as much as I could as fast as I could,” Dunlap said. “And I was right.”

Every Tuesday, Dunlap loads her blue 1986 sedan with donated food, diapers, clothing--whatever is needed. Her trunk is filled with “medications”: Gatorade for electrolytes, 7-Up for nausea, cough syrups and pain relievers.

Her first stop is the Golden Forest Inn. Inside, behind the green stucco and beyond the asphalt parking spaces children call a playground, is a world of poverty and neglect. Here, Dunlap meets other volunteers: a man who delivers surplus bread, a resident who keeps track of the sick in the complex, a woman who spends time with the children.

After residents trickle out of their rooms and collect some food, Dunlap checks on anyone who feels sick.

“Poverty doesn’t only exist economically,” she said. “It also exists spiritually, emotionally and physically. When I go out there, I try to address all levels of poverty. But the needs are absolutely overwhelming.”

Joyce Cronin, 33, a three-year Golden Forest resident, approached Dunlap about her throat irritation, because she wasn’t sure what to do and couldn’t afford a $75 doctor’s visit. Dunlap provided her with a cough suppressant and Ibuprofen.

“Linda is a mother to me,” Cronin said. “She’s there when I can’t pay for a doctor. She’ll give me pain pills for my migraines. Not all women can be mothers, but Linda is like everyone’s mother.”

Inside another room, a woman was fighting a similar infection. She explained she was getting fever and chills and vomiting and her throat felt as if it was closing.

With her hand on the woman’s wrist, Dunlap told her: “If you had a medical plan, I’d tell you to get to a doctor right now.” Dunlap promised to contact a Newport Beach physician who might help.

“She’s got a nasty infection,” the Dunlap said. “It looks like she’s going need a little help through this.”

Six years ago, Dunlap started Project Dignity, a nonprofit advocacy group for the homeless and poor, but had taken on only short-term projects until last year, when she met Mardi Reynolds. Reynolds had delivered surplus bread to the poor regularly for years, and Dunlap insisted on following and offering her help. Now it’s a permanent commitment.

At first, she said, “People looked right past me. They didn’t look at me, and no one spoke to me for three weeks.”

But she persisted, handing out brightly colored Band-Aids to children and acquiring the nickname of “Band-Aid lady.” Today, the children are drawn to her like a magnet.

Terrie Lovelace, 39, lived at the Pitcairn Motor Hotel when she met Dunlap. Though she stayed in a tiny room with her husband and five children, Lovelace offered it as a makeshift clinic so that Dunlap could treat local children for head lice. Lovelace said her children helped Dunlap with the shampoo treatments for eight weeks, and learned not to take their health for granted.

“It also taught them that there are good people out there,” she said. “I didn’t know there were such good people out there.”

Dunlap no longer takes her own health for granted either.

Eleven years ago, doctors diagnosed a brain tumor and estimated she had six months to live. After two surgeries that removed part of her anterior pituitary, she lost sight in her left eye and was placed in an experimental drug program, a combination of RU-486 and steroids, which has reduced her tumor by 10%. Still, she is often unable to climb a single flight of stairs without exhaustion.

A few weeks before she began visiting the local motels, her doctor told her she could expect a normal life span. But by then, Dunlap said, she had made peace with her impending death.

“I was devastated,” she said. “I had looked forward to returning to the Lord every day for 10 years. What was I going to do with my life?”

She said her mission became clear when she recalled how close to homelessness she had felt a year earlier, when $50,000 in medical bills cost her husband his tool dealership business and almost their home.

Although her work is rewarding, she said, it sometimes forces her to stare into a “dark place in my soul,” where she thinks about the children and the simple luxuries they never enjoy.

Once, while eating at a pizza parlor and watching kids laughing and playing, it hit her hardest. “The next thing I know, I’m really sobbing,” she said. “There’s a price to pay for everything, and this is the price.”

Nevertheless, Dunlap would like to reach more motels in Orange County, maybe even in Long Beach. Though she has 20 volunteers, she could use more to alleviate some of her administrative work. And she stresses the need for a volunteer doctor because she encounters situations beyond her professional limits.

“We’ve made no public appeals for anything but a doctor,” Dunlap said. “We’ve never requested funding; people just give it to us. I believe we’ll get what God wants us to have.”

For more information about Project Dignity, call: (714) 534-4271.