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A. LE FLOCH
MOORESTOWN — Todd Moreland says his mission is to help one family at a time.
The Riverside resident organized a group last summer to travel to the Dominican Republic to help the island-ers, many of them children, who work in sugar cane fields there.
In June, Moreland led a group of 15 members of the First Baptist Church on West Main Street to the Caribbean nation to distribute food, clothing and school supplies to the villages where the sugar workers live.
The group called the trip Mission Possible, and is planning to return this year.
To raise money for the second trip, Moreland is showing the documentary “The Price of Sugar” at the church tonight and tomorrow.
The documentary shows how the sugar cane plantations work their employees 14-hour days, seven days a week without access to electricity, clean water, education, health care and nutrition.
Moreland said children work for as little as $1 a day.
“Not only are these children who are working in awful conditions, they are children in need of help,” Moreland said yesterday. “There are children in every one of these (villages) who are sick.”
Moreland said he has met children there with HIV, Down syndrome, spina bifida and cerebral palsy.
“You think, there is so much despair, hunger and disease, how can I even make a difference? I feel like it’s something I’ve been called to do,” Moreland said.
In addition to the Mission Possible group, Moreland and his wife, Tamara, founded the Circle of 12, which is dedicated to helping special-needs children in the Dominican Republic.
“Until you see these kids and touch them, you don’t realize how much they need your help,” Moreland said. “When you look behind their eyes, you can see that they know I am there to help them.”
The movie is scheduled to be shown at 7 tonight and at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. tomorrow at the church. Tickets can be purchased at the door for $10.
Email: emoorhouse@phillyBurbs.com