In what was once the garage of a Mendota Heights home, six second-year University of Minnesota medical students sort through bins of surplus medical supplies. Donated by hospitals, clinics, and manufacturers throughout the Twin Cities, the goods are destined for Bolivia, a country in which 95 percent of residents live in poverty and nearly two-thirds have limited, if any, access to medical care.

The students are volunteers, and the house is the U.S. headquarters for Mano a Mano (Spanish for "hand in hand") Medical Resources, a nonprofit launched in 1994 that collects and ships medical surplus to Bolivia. By the late 1990s, Mano a Mano expanded its mission to building medical clinics and improving the country's roads, sanitation system, and water supply. Last year, its 72 clinics had nearly 240,000 patient visits, and the organization shipped 206,130 pounds of equipment and supplies.

Second-year medical student Travis Olives began sorting supplies and equipment four years ago when he was a student in the university's master's in public health program. He continued volunteering after entering medical school in the fall of 2005 and has been a regular in Mano a Mano's sorting room and nearby warehouse. "You don't give much back to the community during those years," he says of the first years of medical school. "This keeps me going."

After hearing about other students who were hungry to help those in need, he organized a group of approximately 30 medical students, three or four of whom show up every Friday afternoon to sort and package equipment. Nursing, physical therapy, dental, and pharmacy students recently started volunteering as well.

Olives got to see for himself the results of Mano a Mano's work when he traveled to Bolivia last August. "What we're collecting is going to folks who never had access to health care," he says. "You could immediately see results.”—Kim Kiser