Erin and 30 other volunteers from the Manchester area spent a week in January with Orphanage Outreach in bateyes near Monte Cristi, DR providing medical care. The bateyes of the Dominican are home to sugar, rice, or banana plantation workers and their families. People that work and live in these bateyes often can't afford anything other than food and shelter, let alone medical care.
Waking at sunrise each morning, the group of volunteers loaded the Orphanage Outreach trucks with suitcases full of medical supplies and headed to the batey. At the batey clinic site, families would be lined up waiting for the volunteers to arrive. After setting up the make-shift registration, triage, education, Dr's, and pharmacy stations, the volunteers would begin seeing patients. With only three doctors it seemed hard to believe that everyone would be seen. But they did. After the final patient was seen, the volunteer's would breakdown the stations and load the trucks in the dark, just to do it all again tomorrow at another batey.
"It was such a humbling experience. The people of the Dominican may be poor in our eyes but they are rich in so many other ways. They cherish the time they have with family and friends. There are no TV's or computers, there is just conversation. This trip made me look at my own life and reevaluate what is really important." -Erin
Click here to learn more about Orphanage Outreach.