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On a bitterly cold January morning in 1987, a team of seven medical professionals flew out of the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport with one goal: to bring health and hope to war torn country of Guatemala. The anesthesia machine, too heavy for the cargo hold, flew shotgun with the pilots from Dallas to Guatemala. Team leader and plastic surgeon Dr. Paul Schultz still chuckles remembering the story. “We were too young to know what we were doing was impossible.
Their location was a small health clinic in Chajul, a village in the highlands of the Ixil Triangle that had been hard hit by the civil war. That week they performed several plastic surgeries in the village, repairing cleft lips, removing tumors, and releasing burn contractures. Little did they know that their single-specialty team of seven would become a multi-disciplinary M.A.S.H. unit with more than seventy volunteers. Now, two decades later, Helps International takes fourteen teams a year from across the United States and has touched the lives of over 250,000 Guatemalans.
Through the support of many generous donors and devoted volunteers, Minnesota continues to bring three teams a year from the greater Minnesota area, one of which partners with Dallas Fort-Worth. Schultz leads two of these teams and credits their success to the tireless work of team administrator Cammy Olson and consistent support of Midsota Plastic Surgeons, especially partners Dr. Paul Heath and Dr. Jim Smith.
In March of 2008, Helps expanded its development team into the Northern States with the addition of Geri Randall. A nurse from St. Cloud, Randall had served as a Helps volunteer for 16 years and chaired the committee of Minnesota’s annual golf tournament since the year 2000. In May of 2009, Meredith Schultz, daughter of Dr. Paul Schultz, partnered with Randall as “writer-in-residence.” Thanks to the generous support of individual donors, the salaries of the Northern Office are provided apart from Helps funds.
If you would like to support the work of Helps International in Latin America, please consider attending one of our events, volunteering on a medical team, or partnering with us as a sponsor. In changing the lives of others we have found that the life changed is truly our own. We hope that you will share in the Helps story with us.
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Geri Randall, Director of Development and Public Relations:
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Geri has been a Helps volunteer for sixteen years and it was the medical teams that inspired her to return to
school to study nursing. A licensed nurse, she worked for St. Cloud
Hospital and Midsota Plastic Surgeons before joining the Helps team
officially in March of 2008. Having chaired the golf committee for the
Annual Minnesota Golf Tournament for the last nine years, Geri
transitioned naturally into her role as Director of Development and
Public Relations in March of 2008. Geri handles event-planning,
fundraising and sponsorships for the Northern States. A friendly and
gregarious person, her pastor describes her as “the woman of 10,000
friends,”—a title which makes her perfect for promoting the Helps
story. More than simply a job, Geri feels her service with Helps is an
outworking of her faith in God, a truth which motivates her through
every hardship. Geri is the devoted wife of Douglas Randall, mother of
two, and grandmother of four. When not playing with her grandchildren,
Geri loves arts and crafts and spending quality time with friends and
working in her garden. |
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Mark Boyle, Development Intern
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Mark has completed one and a half years of
undergraduate studies at the University of MN Duluth. He will be
spending Spring Semester of 2009 traveling Eastern Europe and plans to
return to school in Fall of 2010 at Augsburg College. He aspires for a
career in media writing, with a concentration on opinion column and
political science. He was introduced to HELPS early through his father
Phil, who has been a part of the medical teams since 1989. He will be
going on his fifth trip to Guatemala this January of 2010. As a
Development Intern, Mark will gain experience most applicable to his
career aspirations through writing, website management, and media
networking.
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HELPS International Copyright 2009 | | |
