LEWISTON – Two years ago, right before a trip to Haiti, someone gave Dr. Cynthia DeSoi $200 to spend down there however she saw fit. She paid for the surgery of a man with seven kids who was too sick to work.

“He had this hernia that hung down to his knees, it was enormous,” she said.

DeSoi had always wondered how he made out. This fall, that man found her.

“He came back. ‘You remember me? You saved me. I’m all better.'”

DeSoi, a Lewiston kidney doctor, travels to Haiti about every three months, at her own expense and using vacation time, to serve as medical director to the in-house clinic of Pwoje Espwa, or Project Hope.

The project founded by Lewiston native the Rev. Marc Boisvert is part school, part orphanage, in Les Cayes, Haiti. The clinic started out for the 700 children who live there, but the community has come to use it.

Her trips started 10 years ago. The first time, DeSoi said, it took months to shake “the smells, the sights, the images of naked, starving people.”

She’s lost count of how many more trips there have been since. The kids keep her coming back. They call her “Dr. Cynthia.”

“They can play, they get fed, they get clothes, somebody cares about them and they just bloom,” she said.

The project operates primary, secondary and vocational schools for 2,000 children. It costs $1 a day to send a child to school, another $1 to feed them, she said. Funding is always uncertain. It has been a goal of hers to get every child a tetanus shot. Next is that everyone have an HIV test.

When she’s not there, she coordinates the visiting doctors from afar. One team from Indiana saw 1,000 patients in one week last month.

In a country where conditions are often rough and food tight, Haiti is hurting now from having lost two-thirds of its crops in four back-to-back hurricanes, DeSoi said.

“If you think about all the problems in Haiti, it’s overwhelming,” she said.

In the past, she’s thought about not going down. That doesn’t feel like an option.

“My partners (at Nephrology Associates), they know this is my passion. They’ve stopped rolling their eyes. My patients get nervous,” she said.

They worry something will happen to her. Sometimes, they slip her donations. It puts things in perspective, DeSoi, 49, said. What a person thinks they need and what they can’t live without.

“I think it’s changed our family in terms of how we celebrate holidays,” she said.

She’ll head down next on Jan. 13 for a meeting of the board of Theo’s Work, the project’s non-profit parent. Six days later, a crew from St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center will join her on its regular trip to Haiti. DeSoi initially got involved through St. Mary’s. Over the years, that hospital has sent about 120 staffers who’ve given more than 8,000 hours to help on different projects.

“One by one by one, you can make a difference,” DeSoi said.

For more information about Project Hope, www.freethekids.org

Do you know someone who deserves to be recognized for the many good things they do for others in our communities? Contact Mark Mogensen at 689-2805 or at [email protected].