BOCA RATON, Fla. – Nurse practitioner Rachel Huerta has a heart for helping sick children. Not only children in the U.S., but in Africa.

Rachel said, “I’m doing this because the people in Tanzania. I have built a relationship with them over the last five years. I’ve gone there twice before. I worked in their clinic.”

Rachel says the people who live in the villages need medicine.

“They need just for simple things like malaria, every 30 seconds a child dies of malaria in Tanzania. Something so easy to treat, something easy to prevent with meds, so we are trying to bring awareness and treatment. The other things are tuberculosis, HIV Aids.”

She is raising funds for her trip. Family members, her church and the Boca Raton Rotary Club are helping. “Then we had people who wanted to donate games to the orphanage, so I’ve been collecting for that,” said Rachel.

Rachel won’t be taking the medication with her when she travels. Instead the money that was donated to her will be used to buy medicine in that country.

“We are going to go there and access specific needs and then allocate the funds to them,” she said.

Rachel hopes others will join her with helping the sick.

“Someday it would be lovely to have a clinic here that is helping a rural community that allows for the nurse practitioners and physicians a time to cycle through and have a similar heart for Africa or whatever region we end up in and we can all spend a little time overseas, ” said Rachel.