Updates · July 26, 2022
Social Vision: the beginning
It started at a pharmacy counter in Cuenca. On 26 July 2022 Jim and Jennifer Cory and Dr. Ivan Vallejo made it a foundation, with a simple idea: necessary medical care should not depend on what a family can pay.
Jim and Jennifer Cory came to Cuenca after long working lives in California. Jim, a union electrician in San Francisco, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s at 45; retirement brought them to Ecuador, and Ecuador brought them face to face with people who could not afford the care they needed.
It began in pharmacies. Again and again Jim and Jennifer saw people who could not pay for a prescription walk away without their medicine. Jim came to an agreement with a local pharmacy: he left money there, and when a customer came up short, the pharmacy made up the difference. Word spread quickly, and the need turned out to be far bigger than one pharmacy.
Together with Dr. Ivan Vallejo, an orthopedic and trauma specialist at Hospital Monte Sinaí, they founded Social Vision on 26 July 2022. Roberto Mora, one of the first friends they made in Cuenca, guided the foundation to nonprofit status in Ecuador, something they had been told was nearly impossible, and it is registered in the United States as well. The board is entirely volunteer.