CARE Team Medical Missions

Direct care & provider training — Line Islands, Republic of Kiribati

$80,000 fully funds a week-long medical mission — every volunteer's travel, every pallet of supplies — for islands where our first mission drew nearly 20% of the population seeking care.

The Need

The Line Islands of Kiribati are among the most medically underserved inhabited places on Earth. There is no resident dentist, optometrist, or specialist physician on Kiritimati — and no doctor at all on Fanning or Washington. Specialist care sits on South Tarawa, over 2,000 miles of ocean away, behind a flight or sea passage most families cannot afford. Screenable, manageable conditions go unmanaged until they become emergencies or, too often, fatal.

Our first CARE Team mission in April 2026 proved both the need and the model. When word went out — carried by community leaders the organization had cultivated over years — nearly 20 percent of Kiritimati's population showed up seeking care. Over three days, a volunteer team of 7 care providers and 4 support staff, working alongside local health personnel, treated nearly 900 patients: general checkups, vision screenings and roughly 75 eyeglass prescriptions, a dozen laser eye surgeries, over 130 dental extractions, wound care, breast exams, asthma and diabetes management, and treatment of conditions like mycetoma. Demand still exceeded what eleven volunteers could deliver in a week. The entire mission cost approximately $35,000 — under $40 per patient treated — because most volunteers paid their own way.

The Program

We are building to three missions per year, each focused on a specific local priority — dental, pre/perinatal care, immunizations, chronic disease management — with local provider training built into every mission. On the first mission, the local nursing team worked side-by-side with the CARE Team all week, receiving the most substantive clinical training they had ever had; every future mission compounds that capability. With each mission, the scope, the trust, and the supply cache on the island grow.

December 2026 — Dedicated Dental Mission. The first mission's 130+ extractions made the need unmistakable. A volunteer team of dentists will provide extractions, restorative care, and preventive treatment, with a longer-term goal of a denture program restoring function and dignity to adults who have gone decades without care.

2027 — Two Broad-Based Missions (April & August). Primary care clinics, chronic disease screening and management, women's and children's health, immunizations, dermatology, and structured provider training — each mission building on the patient relationships and clinical picture established the year before. Continuity of care, not one-off visits.

Mission Funding

Transport is the story of every budget: moving people and pallets across 2,000+ miles of ocean is where most of the money goes. Our medical-surplus procurement pipeline — partnering with US clinics and equipment refurbishers to capture brand-new discarded supplies — keeps the supplies themselves remarkably inexpensive.

  • April 2026 actual — volunteers self-funded travel (proof of concept, not a sustainable model) — ~$35,000

  • Lean model — all volunteer travel covered, plus lodging, supply & equipment shipping, and logistics — ~$80,000

  • Fully-funded model — adds expanded supplies, mission-specific equipment (dental, optical, ultrasound), added shipping capacity & local training components — ~$150,000

Support This Program

  • Sponsor a patient — ~$90. Funds one islander's care on a fully-funded mission.

  • Sponsor a mission day — ~$11,500. A full day of clinics, hundreds of patients seen.

  • Sponsor an entire mission — $80,000+. Your name (or your quiet anonymity) behind a week that a whole island remembers.

Donate Now → All contributions are tax-deductible. To direct your gift to this program, note the program name with your donation or contact us.

Program Updates

The latest from the field. Check back here as this program grows.

April 2026 — First mission complete. Nearly 900 patients treated in three days on Kiritimati.