Where It Began
It started in a hospital in Lithuania.
In 1997, founders Tom and Nancy Stoeckel visited a 900-bed hospital in Panevezys, Lithuania. They watched staff reuse needles and improvise sterilization for equipment that should have been replaced years earlier.
Back home, Tom ran a U.S. emergency department that discarded perfectly usable supplies every single day. The contrast was impossible to unsee.
Medical Ministries International was founded in 1998 to connect that surplus with the hospitals that need it most.
“3,000 tons of usable medical supplies are sent to U.S. landfills every day. We decided to send them somewhere they'd save lives instead.”
— Tom & Nancy Stoeckel, Founders
