Midsota Plastic Surgeons provides surgical care to the poor and indigenous peoples of Guatemala every year.  Partnering with Helps International, a non-profit Texas based organization, Midsota has facilitated scores of volunteer trips over the past two decades.

Helps International sent its first team, led by Midsota surgeons Dr. Paul Schultz and Dr. Paul Heath, in 1988-the first of more than 55 teams from Central Minnesota.  The physicians, including colleague Dr. Jim Smith, and staff of Midsota have been key supporters of Helps since that first trip, organizing the complex array of medical and surgical equipment necessary for this type of work.

Over the past 20 years, Helps International, in partnership with Midsota Plastic Surgeons and multiple other medical teams from across the country, has served more than 135,000 clinic patients and performed over 12,500 surgical procedures.

Dr. Paul Schultz, Medical Director of Helps International, commenting on the work, said that "The volunteers enthusiastically return year to year, despite the conditions, for the opportunity to give of their skills and resources. The volunteers find this experience to be life-changing, even as they are changing the lives of their patients."

One such life was Angel, a six year old boy who came to the Helps clinic in Puerto Barrios with webbed hands and a cleft palate.  Dr. Schultz began the delicate reconstruction process, spanning three medical teams, with repair of both hands and closure of his palate.  Angel became both a joy and an inspiration to the volunteers, a face they will not soon, if ever, forget. His story speaks powerfully to the results Helps teams have had in Guatemala.

For more information about Helps International and their additional development work in improving homes and financial sustainability of families, visit www.HelpsInternational.org.