Except for the woman holding the box of candles, each of the others represents one family displaced by the Port-au-Prince earthquake. That day alone, 300 families were helped.

To hear Mary Ann Laxen, PA-C, MAB tell it, the equation is really quite simple: we are all equal, though not equally in need. Nowhere is this more dramatically apparent than in Haiti, struck on January 12 by the strongest earthquake there since 1770, leaving more than 3 million inhabitants in dire need of emergency aid. For Laxen, who retired in March as director of UND’s Physician Assistant (PA) Program, it was a coming together of calamity and conviction. Although a year-long stay in Haiti had already been in the works, the disaster provided added impetus. She left Grand Forks immediately following her retirement.

Laxen is no newcomer to the region. She first visited Haiti in 1991 as part of an outreach effort, teaming up with the Haitian Health Foundation (HHF) and its medical director Dr. R. Bordeau. This human services organization, founded in the mid-80s, is based in the mid-sized town of Jérémie, about 150 miles west of Port-au-Prince. According to Laxen, over 30,000 people displaced by the earthquake have streamed into Jérémie, a place ill-prepared to receive them. “They come with nothing,“ Laxen said. “They’ll need housing, food, and medical care. They need everything.” They are the lucky ones: ten times that number perished in the quake and its aftermath.