Countywide : Group Plans More Guatemalan Aid

Twenty-five volunteers will travel to Guatemala in July to distribute more than $1.6 million in medical supplies in that country. The trip is being planned by members of Xela Aid, an organization that has already sent materials twice in the past year to the town of Quetzaltenango, Guatemala.

Xela Aid was founded a year ago by Leslie Baer-Brown after she traveled to Guatemala to study Spanish. Her reports of poverty spurred a group of her friends to help her organize the relief work, said Bob Rook, a coordinator of the upcoming trip.

In the past year, Xela Aid medical and optometry teams have treated more than 2,500 patients, built a house and worked on the construction of a school.

Rook and Baer-Brown have previously worked together to feed homeless and poor people in Los Angeles and Tijuana, he said.

“I didn’t know anything about construction or medicine, but I knew about logistics,” said Rook, who trains sales people in Cypress.

The program was established in cooperation with the Los Angeles consular office of the Guatemalan government.

“It’s a very good program,” Guatemalan Consul General Rafael Salazar said. He praised the program for buying construction materials and some medicines in Guatemala. “In this way, they support the local economy,” Salazar said. “They bring only the things that they cannot find in Guatemala.”

The volunteers plan to build a school house in July, teach agriculture and show villagers how to build solar-powered ovens, said Bob Rhein, a member of Xela Aid. The volunteer crew includes nurses and an optometry technician. The group will be joined by doctors and ophthalmologists from Guatemala City, Rhein said.

The medical supplies, which include antibiotics, vitamins, glaucoma medicine, eyeglasses and contraceptives, were donated by Direct Relief International, a Santa Barbara nonprofit organization, and also by Operation U.S.A., an international relief and development agency in Los Angeles, Rhein said.

A previous trip in December, 1993, brought more than 2,000 pairs of glasses and about $100,000 worth of medical supplies, Rhein said. The first Xela Aid trip, in July, 1993, also brought about $100,000 in medicine and other necessities, Rook said. Xela is the Maya name for the town of Quetzaltenango, Rhein said. Xela Aid meets at St. Matthew Church, 2207 W. Orangewood Ave. in Orange.