What being associated with VPI means to Ron:
It has been humbling to have been given the opportunity to volunteer with VPI. The first year I traveled to Haiti I had 4 young children at home. It was a sacrifice for my family to be gone for a week with a newborn. While there I was able to become part of a team that helped one of the poorest regions on the planet. For myself, it changed my very definition of the meaning of a want and a need. I was able to view first hand a group of people that had been hit by adversity and still come together and help one another with the limited resources they had at their disposal. Some of the poorest people on the planet were next to us as a team and willing to share whatever they had with grace. There was an unparalleled sense of community in the village we worked in. I would definitely say that my own lessons on compassion and gratitude far outweighed anything that I had provided to the people there in the form of dental care. Years later to still be a part of VPI, these many lessons on compassion and gratitude have been passed down through my four children as they begin forging into their own unique journey, on this thing called life.
