Issue link: http://maconmagazine.uberflip.com/i/1530620
December 2024/January 2025| maconmagazine.com 67 Help other families achieve the dream of homeownership in places like Perry and Warner Robins by visiting hocohabitat.org There are no roads in or out, and the mostly Indigenous population of Kotzebue can only be reached by airplane. Dr. Tran also serves as a doctor at Rosebud Health Services on the Rosebud Indian reservation in South Dakota. In the Lakota-speaking region, tribal residents have among the lowest life expectancy in the United States. Todd County within the Rosebud Indian Reservation comes in at the third lowest life expectancy by county, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. The prolific Dr. Tran who now teaches Harvard Medical School residents "how to be a doctor," she said, and even finds time to be the associate editor of case records for the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine. She credits the many people in her life who have aided her path. "It's not just my accomplishment, it's all the other people that put me here. My mom. My brother, and Habitat, all the people at our church, all the people in our community. What you see me as, that's because of everyone else." "You can't do anything unless you have a stable place, and Habitat gave us that. We never felt like we belonged anywhere until we got our Habitat house,'' Kathy May said. "Living in a community that's primarily not Asian, the unexpected thing about what Habitat gave us was a family. These are the people we consider our uncles and aunts. Mr. Fred, I call my Dad. When I'm feeling blue, I call Mr. Fred." The story of the Trans illustrates how a home can be the key that unlocks one's future to their full potential. When Tom Vinh Tran talks passionately about how homeownership put his family on a pathway to success, as he has done as recently as this November at a fundraiser for Houston County Habitat for Humanity, people listen and support. TOP LEFT Tom Vinh Tran holds the check as the Houston Heathcare medical staff, where Tran works, donated $20,000 to Houston County Habitat for Humanity. LEFT Hue Tran sparked interest in the medical field for her children. His employer, Houston Healthcare, recently gave Houston County Habitat $20,000 in order to bolster their mission, money that will work to build homes for other families around Central Georgia. Two of Hue's nine siblings still reside in Vietnam. Some of the others have emigrated to the United States, but not all of them have found community as well as Hue, Tom Vinh, and Kathy May. "I'm the only one in the immediate family who speaks English," said Tom Vinh, who still resides in Warner Robins. As for his world-traveling sister, of whom he is proud, he jokingly said, "She can't come back to a small town like this anymore.''