Thanksgiving 2024 Mission to Dominican Republic
Dominican Republic 2024
During the Thanksgiving break, the Medical Mission team and several groups of family volunteers worked with the local team Fundación La Merced in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Approximately eight families, with about 25 volunteers, traveled to the Dominican Republic, and this mission was done on Thanksgiving Day as a reflection of gratitude. The team consists of several young and high school children who worked on projects before coming, such as collecting hats, clothing, soccer, and baseball equipment.
We collaborated with the local non-profit organization Fundación La Merced, which is doing a fantastic job with plastic recycling to keep the community clean, prevent child labor, offer education classes, meals, and a safe space, and teach skills for meaningful employment. We were joined by 15 local youth volunteers who assisted us during the day. The mission team mailed numerous boxes and suitcases of supplies to be donated.
Our organization donated medical equipment, including a new laptop computer, stethoscope, ENT diagnostic kit, and BP machines, to assist with equipment for the local medical office.
In addition, we donated approximately 300 backpacks with notebooks, pens, pencils, hats, hygiene supplies, and other supplies.
We also donated 30 food boxes to needy families in the community on Thanksgiving day so they could have a family meal. We also had candy and sports supplies such as soccer balls, baseballs, and other equipment to the delight of the local children.
Before distributing the supplies, our team broke into four groups to interact with the children, including playing a basketball game where the local side humbled us.
The STEM demonstration of capillary action by Ms. Shivani was a hit, and plans are in progress for her Robotics team, Roboboogie, to form more interaction.
We also attended the children’s dance class and had lessons in the local Latino dance style of bachata and merengue.
This mission was a success; we were humbled and felt welcomed and appreciated by the local organization, the children, and the community, who all expressed gratitude for this mission. Our donations will have a meaningful impact, and we hope to continue our collaboration soon. The children in attendance all had a good time and worked hard during the preparation day, sorting supplies and preparing backpacks with supplies; they gained valuable life lessons seeing how the supplies, especially their toys, clothing, and sports equipment they collected, are now being used and appreciated by the local children.
After the mission, we traveled together the next day to bond and debrief. The following day, we visited the old capital, Zona Colonial, strolling and buying local souvenirs, and visited the cathedral and the presidential palace. The sergeant recognized the mission shirts and was appreciative of our service. Afterward, we stopped for delicious local coconut water and saw the pope’s mobile and the monument built to commemorate the Pope’s Visits to the island in January 1979.
Thanks to all our administrator directors who worked tirelessly to plan and find a suitable local partner to work with. To the volunteers and their families who traveled during the busy Thanksgiving holiday and solicited donations for sports equipment, hats, monetary contributions, and many more supplies. Everyone carried several suitcases of supplies, was excited to participate, and was looking forward to the next mission
My name is Shivani, I am a high school student and member of 3540 Roboboogie, which is a robotics team in New York. Roboboogie had the opportunity as part of our ongoing community outreach in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) to build STEM kits for the students at the La Merced Foundation. The purpose of the STEM kits were to teach the students about capillary action, which is a process of how liquid such as water moves. The students were taught capillary action by using items such as colored markers, paper towels and water. The students were able to see how the sections of the paper towel which were colored with a marker and placed in water achieve traction by which the color moved upwards due to capillary action. Capillary action is an important function and can be seen in real-world application, for example with trees using this process to obtain water in their roots from rainfall or toxins. Understanding this process can help change harmful behaviors and actions affecting people and the environment.
I had an amazing experience volunteering in the Dominican Republic with the Medical Mission Called to Serve and honored to serve the community of the La Merced Foundation. Roboboogie is appreciative of the support from the Medical Mission Called to Serve in encouraging our hat drive in which we collected donations of over 100 hats and our STEM project. Roboboogie plans to collaborate with the La Merced Foundation on future STEM projects.
I loved working in the Dominican Republic. It was amazing to connect with new people and aid others with them. It was astonishing to see the state of children my age lack the proper resources to learn and yet, so marvelously learn things like the English numbers and alphabet. The children’s strong ambition to learn made me want to assist children like them even more. This trip and project has inspired me to go out of my way to help children in need who have a passion to learn no matter what.
The trip to the Dominican Republic taught me a lot about kindness and helping others. I saw that even the simplest gestures, such as offering candy or distributing stem kits, can significantly affect those in need. It was an unforgettable encounter that has inspired me to pursuing a career in medicine and embarking on medical missions globally, thereby fulfilling my aspiration to provide assistance to those individuals
My Thanksgiving in the Dominican Republic
By Jival Mangru
From a very young age, I’ve had a passion for helping others, which has only intensified. Volunteering is defined as one offering to do something that they do not have to do, without being asked to and without expecting payment1. While this is true, for me, volunteering is much more than that. In my eyes, the act of volunteering is a reminder of how much of a difference one can make in the lives of others. At the same time, volunteering can help an individual to develop a new perspective of the resources available to the privileged versus the under-privileged. Over the past few years, I have volunteered at numerous events in my community, however, until recently, I had never done a volunteering oppor-tunity in a foreign country. That’s why, when I volunteered to spend my Thanks-giving break on a trip with Medical Mission Call to Serve, I had no idea what to expect.
In the beginning, I understood the purpose of the trip was to visit a community center for children on the out-skirts of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, called Fundación La Merced, to provide the children there with clothes, toys, and school supplies. To help collect dona-tions, I, along with other volunteers, organized a hat drive that ran through September and October of 2024. The hats we collected were necessary since the chil-dren develop fungal and viral illnesses due to inclement weather. At home, I designed a flyer to promote the drive, then advertised in different neighborhoods throughout Forsyth County, Georgia. Word got out with-in a few weeks, and by the end of the drive, throughout the states of New York, North Carolina, and Georgia, we had received over 300 donated hats.
On the drive to the center, I understood why infectious diseases were prevalent due to the poverty all around. Children were playing in muddy water, wearing little to no clothes, and their surroundings were nearly inhabitable. However, at the center, there were newly constructed buildings, food, running water, and electricity, all of which were financed by donations. Our donations helped in a small way to give clothes in an area where they were desperately needed.
At the beginning of the visit, I got to supervise a classroom of children doing arts and crafts. The kids also interacted with us through sports such as basketball and dances specific to their culture. Towards the end of the visit, we gave out back-packs containing supplies, including toothbrushes and toothpaste, notebooks, pencils, pens, eras-ers, sharpeners, and the hats we collected, to all the children, who were elated to be getting new items to help with their everyday life. At the same time, we met some of their parents, who thanked us and cried tears of joy as they watched their children receive the supplies they needed.
To reflect, I learned not to be biased when helping others, since I thought the center al-ready had everything they needed without our help. However, our donations helped the cen-ter to be more successful in its mission to help the children. Furthermore, the trip taught me what it means to take the initiative in certain situations. For example, I gave instructions to the children during arts and crafts to help them do their work properly. Since we were in the Dominican Republic, I had to communi-cate in Spanish, the official language, which allowed me to value myself in a way I never had before, especially after I praised one little girl in Spanish and made her grin with pride. To conclude, volunteering is a wonderful way to make a difference. The smiles on the faces of the children, the parents, and the communi-ty center director were proof of that, and they reinforced my belief that happiness is defined by the simple act of giving, not by how much resources or possessions one has.
Acknowledgements:
I would like to thank Drs. Juana Hernandez and Balichand Permashwar, who are the lead organizers for Medical Mission Call to Serve, other volunteers on the mission, the director of the community center, Mr. Alberto Jiménez, and the principals of Fundación La Merced.
References:
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1. Volunteering definition | Cambridge English dictionary. (n.d.).