Our Story

Based in Santa Cruz, California, we help develop global opportunities and resources to support the local needs in the outer islands of Micronesia.

It began with the dream of co-founder Vidalino Raatior to tab into existing global resources to help his people in the outer islands. The naming of the nonprofit organization mirrors that dream of building global partnerships with people of goodwill, philanthropic organizations, corporations, and college students to help in the three areas of needs in those outer islands; namely, education, health care, and economic development.The idea to form a way to bring global resources to empower children and women in the outer islands has been a dream of the founder Vid Raatior ever since he left the outer islands in Micronesia as a young man to get an education.

It began to take shape with the support of his wife Desha and her family in Santa Cruz, CA. In 2004, Vid and Desha quit their jobs at Santa Clara University and University of San Francisco respectively to volunteer at Xavier High School in Micronesia. That profound experience deepened their desire to find more formal ways to be involved in the empowerment of the impoverished people from those isolated islands.

To support their educational effort in Chuuk, Desha’s father Dr. Barry Staley, a retired periodontist and his librarian wife Stephanie started the Micronesia Dental Support Project out of their home to solicit dental equipment to send to Chuuk State Public Health Clinic. They succeeded in filling an entire 40-foot container worth over $500,000 which they shipped via Matson Shipping Lines to Chuuk. They both flew to Chuuk to help the local staff to set up the equipment and to bring some books to the Xavier High School library.

In the summer of 2008, Dr. Staley returned to Chuuk with a team of volunteer dentists and a support crew to operate free dental clinics on the outer island of Houk. Unfortunately, the high fuel cost grounded the one small airliner that serviced the outer islands so the team set out to help people in several villages on the main island of Weno. They also went to the island of Toloas on the invitation of their mayor.

Meet the founders

Vidalino (Vid) Raatior was born and raised on the outer island of Houk in Chuuk State, Micronesia. Like all outer island children, Vid left Houk at age 13 to further his 8th grade education on other islands. Unlike most of his peers, Vid was lucky to have teacher mentors and Jesuits who encouraged him to further his education beyond Chuuk High School.

Vid spent the next 10 years abroad to pursue an education. After completing a bachelors degree from the University of Guam, Vid joined the Jesuits and spent the next ten years in training studying at the Manresa Jesuit Novitiate in Palau, Fordham University in New York, Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, California, and taught at Xavier High School, Micronesia. Yet throughout those formative years, Vid has never wavered from seeking ways to help his people back in the outer islands.

While he continues to admire the Jesuits for their spirituality rooted in being “men for others,” Vid felt he could do more as a lay person. A year after leaving the Jesuits, Vid met Desha in graduate school at University of San Francisco and two years later got married. They now live in Soquel, California with their daughter Keala.

Vid works at the International Programs Office at Santa Clara University as Assistant Director of Study Abroad Programs. In his job, Vid has been able to travel internationally and has seen the transformative power of shared global resources.