“I know what it is to be poor, hungry and have no hope. I traveled down that road,” – Rodrigue Mortel

High Hopes for Haiti is sponsored by The Mortel Family Charitable Foundation, a 501(c)3 tax exempt organization founded in 1997 by Dr. Rodrigue Mortel to serve the economically, socially, and intellectually deprived children and adults of Haiti.

Meet Dr. Mortel

Rodrigue Mortel was only one of a multitude of children growing up in the overpopulated, impoverished country of Haiti in the 1930s. He was born into abject poverty, in a small rented house of wattle and daub, lacking even the minimal necessities of water and electricity. When they were evicted from this meanest of dwellings because his parents could not pay the monthly rent of $4, young Rodrigue vowed such an indignity would never again be permitted against his family.

“This would not have happened if I had been educated,” his mother acknowledged. The words his mother spoke were permanently etched in his heart as he silently pledged that he would finish his education and someday build a house for his mother. He could not have known that he was destined to accomplish much more for his country.

Rodrigue dedicated himself to moving his way through Haiti’s highly competitive public education program. He understood that a superior education would arm him with the tools he needed to make a better life for himself and his family. He entered the United States in 1963 to receive special training in obstetrics and gynecology at Hahnemann Medical College in Philadelphia. He continued his sub-specialization in oncology at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. In 1972, Dr. Mortel joined the Penn State University College of Medicine and by 1977, he was full Professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Six years later he became the first black foreign educated physician to chair one of the 126 United States medical schools department of obstetrics and gynecology. He maintained that position for nearly 13 years. In 1995 he was bestowed the title of Associate Dean and Director of Penn State University Cancer Center.

Now retired from the medical field, Dr. Rodrigue Mortel is a permanent deacon, with many irons in the fire of ministry. He leads the Missions Office for the Archdiocese of Baltimore, furthering the church’s missionary work across the world. He runs the Baltimore-Haiti Project, a means by which Baltimore Archdiocese catholics can spiritually and materially help the poorest of the poor in Haiti. All of these organizations are separate yet all are blessed by the services of Dr. Mortel.