CTMC helped more than 1,300 Honduran people in four days during last month's 2011 medical mission trip. Patients come to Pan American's malnutrition center in Pena Blanca, Honduras from various communities around the Lake Yojoa region to receive free eyeglasses, medicine and health care.
Five years ago, a team of 18 CTMC physicians and nurses, as well as construction workers and translators traveled to Pena Blanca, Honduras. The construction workers built a girls dormitory for the Pan American Children's Home.
Karen Morris, CTMC ancillary services administrative director, said the team provided medical assistance to patients from the town on their first day in the country. She said the team traveled throughout the country in a school bus for three days to continue their philanthropic work. In total, the team served 500 people.
"We call it 'Banana Tree Clinic,'" Morris, CTMC Honduras medical mission trip director, said. "You never know what you're getting into."
Morris said the 2011 CTMC Honduras team found three children that they believed would have died from malnutrition if it were not for their medical care.
Morris, who was raised in Costa Rica, said the CTMC gift shop will begin selling Honduran coffee produced by the St. Vincent cooperative at an unspecified date. She said the coffee will be sold under the Durado brand name. She said they plan to sell the coffee for $7 or $8. Baskets, hats and ornaments weaved by female vocational school students will also be sold. She said it takes one day to create a basket and more than two days to create a hat. All proceeds will benefit the Pan American malnutrition center.
Until the items are sold in the CTMC gift shop, Morris stores them in her "Honduras Room." She said next year's medical mission trip to Honduras is in the planning stage.
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| photo by Dagoberto Fernandez |
