Dear Donors,

We want to take a moment and reiterate our thanks for your support during this crowdfunding campaign. The global health medical students at the UA College of Medicine - Phoenix (UACOMP) appreciate it tremendously.

As many of you know, the timing of our trip on 9/24 - 9/30, fell at the same time that Hurricane Maria hit the Dominican Republic. It was a difficult decision, but ultimately the UACOMP determined that our trip to the DR would be a safety risk for our students and cancelled the trip 24 hours before our departure. We received word that the orphanage, where we were planning to stay, had been flooded and had experienced electricity shortages. In addition, the bateys in which we had planned to provide medical care were also flooded and transportation to each area would prove extremely difficult.

In the time since this decision has been made, the leaders of the Global Health Interest Group have given a tremendous amount of thought to the reallocation of the donations made through our crowdfunding page. We have solicited input from many leaders at our university and specifically our Global Health Program. As we settle on a final decision, we would also like to gain input from you, our valued donors.

At this time, the students who were originally planning on attending this fall trip (now second year medical students) are unable to reschedule their trip due to academic time constraints. However, a group of first year medical students plan on pursuing a global health trip in the spring or summer of 2018. This trip is currently being planned by the leaders of our global health program. At this time, we would like to reallocate your donations to support these future students on their upcoming trip. Your donations would not only impact our medical students, but also have a much needed impact on the communities they serve.

If you have any concerns about this plan or would not like your donation used to support the upcoming trip, please email zalattar94@email.arizona.edu by Dec. 1. If you have no objections, we thank you again for your donation. We will update you on details of the next trip as we get them. The future global health students appreciate your support of their upcoming trip.

All the best,

Global Health Interest Group

University of Arizona College of Medicine -- Phoenix

We want to take a moment to thank everyone who came out to support the Global Health Fundraiser yesterday evening. We appreciate your support and are extremely excited to begin this trip one week from today. We will continue to collect donations until then and hope that you can continue sharing our crowdfunding link with friends, family, colleagues, and community. 

We hope to see you at tonight's fundraiser at The Duce at 8 PM. This is a chance to meet the students who will be going on the trip! Please see attached flyer for details. 

We are excited to announce that we have reached 84% of our initial goal in just a few weeks. Thank you so much to all of our donors and everyone who has supported this project - we appreciate you so much. We also want to extend a special thank you to two companies that have supported us with large amount donations: Retail Me Not and WhiteSpace Enterprise. 

We will continue to collect online donations through Friday, September 22, 2017 -- the date of our travels. In the meantime, we would like to remind you to save the date for Friday, September 15, 2017 at 8PM for our GHIG fundraiser at The Duce in Phoenix, AZ. Proceeds from the event will also be supporting our trip to the Dominican Republic.