Party for a good cause

The Seventh Annual Community Cares for Kids Carnivale was held Jan. 19 at the Westmoreland Club in Wilkes-Barre. The event benefits an organization founded by plastic surgeon Dr. Francis Collini and his wife, Susan, of Shavertown. Since 1977, Dr. Collini and a medical team have gone to Ecuador each year to operate on children desperately in need of corrective surgery. They work around the clock for a week every summer, taking with them not only medical personnel but all medical and surgical supplies. In 2006, with the opening of a new ambulatory surgery center in Shavertown, Dr. Collini and the volunteers have expanded their humanitarian mission by bringing children from other parts of the world to the Back Mountain facility.