Team Work!

Last night, after watching the Super Bowl in Spanish, the team had a silent auction. Items included donations from team members from the United States, Canada, Italy, Spain, and England along with local handicrafts bought during our excursions in the previous days. The team was able to raise close to $2500 toward our fundraising goal. Our progress can be tracked and donations can be made at our page here.



Local support for our clinic has been tremendous, not only on the part of the Lions' club, but also Peace Corps volunteers stationed in the area, local schools who have lent us students as translators, the local fire and police departments, and today we had a visit from the Mayor of Santa Cruz who toured our clinic. A local reporter came along and interviewed Doctor Kirk, from Utah and also fluent in Spanish, who talked about the clinic and outlined the schedule for our remaining days in Guatemala.



Patients today included 400 Students from Colegio Evangelico Metodista Utatlan, some of whom have been acting as translators in our clinic.

Pictured here is Doctor Nasim, from Illinois, and Carlos, a 16 year-old local recipient who received his first pair of eyeglasses today. Carlos is seen here smiling after having his significant nearsightedness corrected.

Juliana, from California, is pictured below with a recipient who received a stylish pair of retro eyeglasses. She was so excited to receive her glasses that she hugged and thanked everyone.

Today was one of our busiest days in clinic so far, but the team responded to the increased flow with everyone working together to give the gift of sight. It was a good day.