Paramedic students from Cambridge taking toys to Haiti for Christmas

By Brock Parker, Town Correspondent

The Pro EMS Center for Medics in Cambridge will be delivering toys and breakfast to more than 1,400 children at refugee camps and an orphanage in Haiti on Christmas morning.

It will be the second year in a row that Chris Kerley, director of the Center, dressed has Santa Claus to deliver toys and food to children, including many that lost their parents during a devastating earthquake in the country in January of 2010.

The Center for Medics is collecting toys for children between the ages of 3 and 8 years old, and has also collected donations towards the children’s breakfast on Christmas Day.

Four Center for Medics paramedic students, Kristen Dutile, Jonathan Zielinski, Rohan Kulkarni, and Andrew Gordon, will travel to Haiti with Kerley to deliver food and toys to the refugee camps.

“These refugee camps are not permanent settlements, yet they continue to be all that is available for these children,” Kerley said in a press release. “We are going to buy food for them locally and prepare breakfast and other meals so that they can enjoy a Christmas celebration.”

The Center for Medics team will also operate a mobile clinic in Port au Prince that would otherwise be shut down for the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day. They will also travel to rural clinics near Port au Prince to provide antibiotics and treatment.

The humanitarian mission is part of a collaboration between the Center for Medics, which is located on Smith Place in Cambridge, with Boston-based non-profit group Sante Fanm Ak Lafanmi.

The team will leave for Haiti on Christmas Even and will be accepting financial donations to help the children. More information about the Center for Medics can be found at www.centerformedics.com.
--brock.globe@gmail.com