They felt compelled to turn the call that had been placed upon their hearts into action.
In 1987, the first medical trip that eventually led to Community Coalition for Haiti (CCH) went to Pignon, a mountain village in Haiti’s central plateau region. Led by the head of surgery for a regional healthcare system, that first trip provided help to many people. And that first trip led to more trips, and the establishment of a medical mission organization in Haiti.
Several years later, CCH’s founders stood in Pignon, and one of their friends, a Haitian man who’d studied and lived in the US for years, had been called by God to return to Haiti to serve his people as a doctor. He gave up all that he’d built in the US to treat the poorest of the poor from the back room of his small Haitian home. Although devoted and faithful, he was struggling to address the overwhelming need for his services, and he needed help.
Started by Two Churches
Our founders returned to their home churches—Vienna Presbyterian Church and First Baptist Church of Vienna—and asked for help. They felt compelled to turn the call that had been placed upon their hearts into action.
Over the following 2+ decades, CCH, led by these founding members and churches, helped that Haitian doctor build a clinic, and later a school and an orphanage. CCH walked alongside him and a growing team of other committed volunteers to make healthcare possible for thousands of struggling but resilient Haitians. We fed starving infants, we trained Haitian leaders, and we committed ourselves to providing the gift of education to as many of the community’s children as possible.
Moved to Jacmel, Haiti
After the massive 2010 earthquake, Haiti’s Ministry of Public Health (MSPP) asked CCH to relocate to Jacmel. This coastal city in the Sud Est (south east) department had suffered tremendous casualties when the public hospital collapsed. We accepted that call to serve the people of Jacmel. Our staff and volunteers were some of the first on the ground in Jacmel after the earthquake. They worked out of tents erected next to the hospital’s rubble, providing emergency care, surgical and rehabilitative services, and logistical leadership.
Over the years, thousands of compassionate volunteers have served in Haiti with CCH. Volunteers have been part of surgical teams, dental and primary care clinics. After we expanded into education and community development ministries, volunteers visited Haiti to support our partner schools, train school directors and teachers, and support our community development programs.
Pause in Volunteer Travel
When we paused travel to Haiti due to the onset of the global COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, we never anticipated the travel pause lasting as long as it has. That cause of our inability to travel to Haiti soon shifted from COVID to civil unrest and gang activity. But while many organizations have left Haiti, we are still there!
CCH’s programs in Jacmel are flourishing. In recent years, our Primary Care and Rehab Clinics surpass 25,000 patient consultations each year. In early 2025, we started our vaccination clinic in partnership with the Ministry of Public Health.
Building for the Future
What started as a simple medical trip quickly led to a joint mission effort between two churches in the early 1990s. That grassroots effort grew to become a significant, impactful ministry—supported, loved and encouraged by a coalition of individuals, churches, organizations, businesses, and schools from across the United States, as well as NGO partners across Haiti.
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