Summit Medical Group Chief Medical Officer, Robert Brenner, MD, MMM, is volunteering with the Church Outreach To Youth Project (COTY) in Haiti. Sister Eunice Tassone, Founder of the Haiti group and COTY Development Director, hosts the projects, which involve a variety of volunteer services to help the underserved people of Haiti.

In addition to taking his medical toolbox, which is stocked with supplies that Summit Medical Group donated, Dr. Brenner has delivered two 37-gallon plastic containers of toys that he purchased for the village children. He also has given tents to Haitian families without homes and delivered additional supplies and medications Summit Medical Group Walgreens Pharmacy has generously donated. While Dr. Brenner attends to residents' medical needs, other volunteers will help with building projects. 

Upon arriving in Haiti, Dr. Brenner and other volunteers traveled 58 miles north on the coastal route from Port au Prince to the Cabaret region. Three miles past the center of Cabaret, near Boucassin, the volunteers followed a 6-mile dirt road into the Haiti bush to a 9-village mountain cooperative. The group is staying in a dormitory at the village of Desab, a hub of the cooperative with a schoolhouse, bakery, and health clinic. There is no electricity or running water in Desab. Village families, which average 7 people, live together in wood-framed mud huts with thatched roofs. Seventy-five percent of the residents in this part of Haiti live as scratch farmers—the norm in much of rural and urban Haiti.

Upon his return, Dr. Brenner will talk about his experience at an art opening to raise additional funds for Haiti relief. The exhibit opens Friday, April 16 at 5 PM. It will be held at Summit Medical Group. For more information, please click here for Summit Medical Group Events.

In addition to Dr. Brenner's efforts, Summit Medical Group staff have donated $15,000, with a generous $5,000 donation from Goldman Sachs, for Haiti relief.

See the video below for a photo essay of Dr. Brenner's volunteer efforts with COTY.