Last year in Honduras, an old man at a nursing home gave Catholic High graduate Michael Caffery some advice.

“After talking for a bit, he told me that every day I should say ‘Gloria al Padre, Hijo y Espiritu Santo’ (Glory to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit),” Caffery said. “He was concerned about my spiritual life. I thought that was really beautiful he was trying to help me in some way when we were bringing him material things.”

Caffery and Episcopal School of Acadiana graduate Tim Rinaldi were on a mission trip to Honduras as part of The Catholic Center at Tulane University’s mission trip, ongoing since 2002.

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Rinaldi, a junior who is considering a career in pediatrics and practicing in a developing country, is one of two student leaders on the trip this year. An additional trip goal is building a health clinic for residents of a mountain region called El Merendon, many of whom do not live close enough to the one health clinic in the area.

Once the clinic is built, said Rinaldi, the group will also provide medicine and medical supplies and pay for two people to become nurses. Two more will become unpaid community health workers. A doctor will visit once a week, and students will monitor progress at the clinic.

During the trip, the students also visit a home for children with HIV, a nursing home, a children’s hospital, a boy’s orphanage and a girl’s orphanage in the city of San Pedro Sula. They then split into smaller groups and visit the mountain region, where they perform Masses, have youth groups for kids and groups for adults, and conduct a program on personal hygiene.

Caffery, a sophomore, said he has always been interested in service in other countries.

“I just always felt that, Americans especially, we’re extremely fortunate,” he said. “At least in my mind, we have some sort of responsibility to help people who don’t have everything we do.”

San Pedro Sula, said Rinaldi, is “the unofficial economic capital of Honduras.”

“It’s nice for a developing country, but at the same time you know it’s a developing country because police ride around holding machine guns,” he said. “It’s safe, but you know stuff happens.”

The mountains, he said, are an “awesome” experience.

He said the first year he went, residents had only had electricity for two weeks.

The group also provides donations like clothes, shoes, medicines, vitamins, school supplies, dental supplies and soccer balls, and has raised money so that kids can keep going to school. Most go to school until age 15, then drop out to work or because of pregnancies, Rinaldi said.

Rinaldi said he is “really excited” about this year’s special purpose.

“It’s a lot of work, but it’s awesome knowing that at the end of our work they’ll have free health care,” he said.

They plan to work on raising money until the middle of November; the trip is from Dec. 30 to Jan. 8. The goal is $15,000, Rinaldi said.

For more information or to donate, go to missionhonduras.tulane.edu.