To Guatemala 2025

We are about a week away from launching another Regis University student trip to Ciudad de la Esperanza in Guatemala. We depart in the wee hours of the morning Monday, May 5th. Typically I write an opening blog post as we depart, but I am writing this year’s missive a week early. My daughter, Grace, graduates from Regis May 4th, so my plate is a bit more full than it typically is, so I thought an early post to open the blog would be advisable this year.

We began this partnership with Regis University and Ciudad de la Esperanza with our first trip in March of 2020, leaving Guatemala just a day or two before the world locked down. We are now 5 years into seeing the clinic there grow and become a beacon for the families who live around Ciudad de la Esperanza. Ciudad de la Esperanza is a community center and school that was founded by a Guatemalan priest, Padre Sergio Godoy, in 2003. It educates more than 450 children from preschool through high school each year. It offers job training for adults and social work and legal assistance for families. And, since 2020, it offers free primary care medical assistance. Padre Sergio founded the community for the very marginalized Maya who live around the outskirts of the local landfill in Cobán, Guatemala. He asked Regis to help him start the clinic, which has quickly become a critical piece of their ministry.  

Regis has supported this initiative boldly and generously. Each year we have raised enough to support the student trip each spring. We also bring pharmaceutical and medical supplies for the community for the whole year. And the last two years we have raised enough to support the salary of a Guatemalan physician to be at the clinic half days year round. In the last academic year we raised over $30k to ship a 40 foot cargo pod from Project CURE to the clinic. It was full of over $450K of donated medical equipment and supplies. The pod shipped from Denver this January. It spent over 2 months at the port in Guatemala and Dr Stephanie learned all sorts of new Spanish words about importation as she helped navigate it through customs. The pod was delivered to the clinic earlier this month.  

loading the pod Jan 2025 Project CURE warehouse Centennial, CO

the fully packed pod

A special item we had packed into the pod was 8 donated solar panels. Matt & Joann Muller are a couple we have gotten to know who attend mass at Regis on Sundays. They have learned about the Guatemala medical program and have been generous supporters for several years. Matt works as an engineer at NREL (National Renewable Energy Lab) and was able to get some donated solar panels. Project CURE was happy to add them to the pod. So, Matt is joining us this year to install the panels on the roof of the clinic lab to help the clinic get off the grid. This is the kind of partnership we value for sustainability. We are very excited to have Matt join us this year.

my brother, Rob, helping get the solar panels to Project CURE

The student group (10 pre-med, nursing, pre-PT, pre-OT students) have bonded extremely well and are all very excited to finally travel. The volunteer medical team has spent the academic year zooming in to an every Sunday 2 hour meeting with the students to prepare them to go run clinic for the week in May. For most of these students this will be their first hands-on patient experience. They will take vital signs and blood sugars in triage, plot kids on growth curves, help kids learn how to brush teeth, assist our dentist in teeth extractions, shadow myself in pediatrics and our internist. They will assist our physical therapist and our pharmacist as well.  

students learning skills at mock clinic in March

Since we have partnered with Ciudad de la Esperanza now for 5 years, we definitely know many of the patients we will see in May. And we are all excited to see them again and try to accompany them along in their journeys. Some of our patients have pretty complex medical needs and we do what we can to bring them their specialized medications or treatment aids. They feel like family. And our two dear interpreters, Diana & Mishel, will, of course, once again join us for the week. They are family - they have helped us in this work now for 14 years.  

Each year this really is my reset button. This project reminds me why I went to medical school 30 some years ago. We get to practice holistic care to an amazing patient population. We get to mentor the next generation of medical providers, hopefully leading them in a path towards serving marginalized communities. And I get to spend a week with some of the most incredible medical providers I have ever known. What could be better than that?

The blog posts will be regularly updated starting a few days after we arrive in Guatemala. So follow our progress that week - probably more posts will start appearing around May 7th. AMDG

Lauri Pramuk, MD