Staples High School student recognized by Senator Haskell for her medical mission trip to Honduras

On September 29th, Connecticut State Senator Will Haskell held a virtual awards ceremony on Zoom recognizing Lindsey Baldwin, a senior at Staples High School, for her community service work to help improve dental and health care for villagers in Honduras.

Lindsey’s project to help the villagers was comprised of four parts: collecting dental care products, raising funds to provide health care, delivering the donated oral care supplies to Honduras and teaching about and providing healthcare to the villagers.

In the summer and fall of 2019, Lindsey created an oral care products drive through which she collected 2,000 dental products (toothbrushes, toothpastes and floss cartridges) by setting up donation bins at half a dozen pharmacies and dental practices in and around the Westport area.

In February of this year, Lindsey, who is also an EMT in town, was part of a medical brigade that traveled to Honduras sponsored by the non-profit healthcare organization called CapeCARES. Lindsey and a dozen dentists and doctors delivered these donated dental supplies to children and adults in the rural regions of the country, and also provided dental and medical care to the villagers.

CapeCARES is a humanitarian non-profit organization that sends volunteer teams to its clinics located in remote, mountainous areas of Honduras to provide free medical and dental care to people who have no access to care. Lindsey also raised $1,430 for the non-profit through a Facebook fundraiser she created.  Here is the link to her Facebook fundraiser: https://www.facebook.com/donate/1521428174664357/608142136591163/ 

Lindsey said, “I wanted to apply my EMT skills in a different context and it was cool to go to a different country and see that they have drastically different needs than the people here. I wanted to get a different perspective on the work that I want to do.”

Senator Haskell said regarding Lindsey’s service, “It speaks so highly of Westport and of my alma mater Staples High School that even in this terrible moment where everything seems to be going wrong that people of our generation are rolling up their sleeves to try to make the world just a little bit better in our community or across the world.”

Dr. Casey Kochevar, one of the dentists who was part of the medical brigade team to Honduras said, “I would like to really thank Lindsey for CapeCares. It’s a huge feat to get that many dental products donated in the first place, but really getting anything to Honduras is a feat in itself. Lindsey got it to those remote areas where they really need it and gave a week of her time in areas that are not a whole lot of fun to spend time in. She did a wonderful job helping all the providers, not just the dentists but also the physicians and the PA’s provide all kinds of services for these people that really needed it.”

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Submitted by Westport, CT

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