Ayuda International · Stories and tributes
Ayuda is the story of dentists, teachers, students, Rotarians and island neighbors who kept showing up. These are some of their stories, and our thanks.
Dr. Ibsen and Dr. DoneDoug MarcyJerry CatesKurt BetzelJana KoebelEmily Talentino
In tribute
Ayuda hopes one day to name a dental clinic in honor of Dr. Robert Ibsen and Dr. Harris Done, the two dentists who did the most to carry its volunteers to the families who needed them.
Dr. Robert L. Ibsen (1931 to 2016) was a dentist and inventor whose generosity reached far beyond his own practice. A 1958 graduate of the USC School of Dentistry, he later taught there and in 1974 founded Den-Mat in Santa Maria, California. He earned more than thirty patents and co-authored the first book on adhesive dentistry. He gave free dental care to people who could not afford it, helped students pay for school and sent young dentists to clinics abroad. Den-Mat stood behind Ayuda’s international clinics for years, and in 2019 Ayuda honored him on the inside cover of its donor booklet.
Dr. Harris Done trained under Ayuda’s founders in the Guatemala highlands, where the Cunén dental clinic was run by a local man he helped train. In 1991 he brought the Ayuda name home to Southern California with USC, and for three decades he led USC students on clinics across Latin America and beyond. He was USC Dental Alumnus of the Year in 2000 and Rotary Humanitarian of the Year in 2006. In 2012 he began the partnership with Steve Bender that produced Doc in a Box, and during COVID he agreed that Ayuda should return to its roots with Indigenous communities. His son, Dr. Byron Done, now keeps Ayuda’s nonprofit status secure.
A tribute and thank you
Doug Marcy, President of the Caribbean Coral Restoration Center, has given his life to saving the coral reefs of Bocas del Toro, and every Rotary Reef in the water today exists because of him. Doug and his wife watched the reefs they loved decline for 25 years. Rather than look away, he moved to Panama and became a resident so he could be licensed to restore them. When COVID stranded Steve in Bocas in May 2020, the two met, and within weeks they were sketching a reef built in the shape of the Rotary wheel.
By April 2021 the first Rotary Reef was on the sea floor, and within weeks it was “already attracting red snappers.” In May 2021 Doug’s team built Reefs 003 and 004 alongside Rotarians and Rotaractors from Newport Beach, and that summer the Rotary Reefs video won second place in ESRAG’s #IFixThePlanet challenge. When the 2023 bleaching hit, he raced to move the most resilient corals into his seed bank. Doug runs the center the way he lives: no paid administrators or board, a Panamanian staff, and more than 90 percent of every dollar spent in the community. “Whatever it takes to keep moving forward,” he told Steve. Thank you, Doug.
The students who built our boxes
Doc in a Box was built by teenagers. Jerry Cates ran the Building Industry Technology Academy at Western High School in Anaheim, and his students turned Steve Bender’s designs into the clinics, boxes and trailers that carried Ayuda around the world. In 2007 they took on their first Doc in a Box: a 20 foot shipping container turned into an AIDS clinic for Nkandla, South Africa. “Our students decided to make this a school-wide project,” Jerry said.
When Ayuda needed a mobile dental clinic, the same students built it. In September 2013 Jerry formed an Interact club at Western, sponsored by the Rotary Club of Newport Beach Sunrise, and its students went on to build the vision trailer and the first Dental and Vision Boxes. In 2015 Steve recruited Jerry into Rotary, and he later served as club treasurer.
Isla Popa
Rotarian Kurt Betzel, a founder of the Rotary Club of Bocas del Toro, made sure the Indigenous Ngäbe families of Isla Popa were never forgotten. When the pandemic closed Bocas in March 2020, he surveyed Popa Uno families through his neighbors, paid for a boat to carry donated food out from town and brought in the Darklands Foundation. “So many in the outer islands simply do not get the needed attention,” he wrote.
In June 2020 Kurt added Popa Uno to Ayuda’s bamboo toothbrush and oral health program. In December 2020 he sponsored the first Rotary Reef, placed in Bahia Tucan in November 2021. He pushed for a school restroom and a recycling program for both Popa villages, and today he and Steve are designing a permanent clinic on Isla Popa with two dental chairs for the Ngäbe communities of Popa I and Popa II. “I’m standing by to assist in any way I can.”
Plastics
Jana Koebel added plastics to Ayuda’s work in Bocas del Toro, and that work is now Ayuda’s primary plastics program, The Plastic Projects. Steve introduced Jana in October 2021 as she was moving to Panama from Germany. Founder of Seas and Straws and a partner of One Earth One Ocean, she built a Bocas plastic recycling plan and became director of the Rotaract Plastics Task Force.
From 2024 Jana developed a Spanish language plastics curriculum for Bocas schools. In May 2025 One Earth One Ocean volunteers taught plastic pollution and recycling at the Isla Popa school on the same days Ayuda gave fluoride and toothbrushes. She brought the SeeElefant recycling ship to EarthX in Dallas. The Plastic Projects is now a living database of plastic solutions that already work, tracking dozens of organizations, technologies, laws and studies around the world.
Give and Surf
Emily Talentino, Executive Director of Give and Surf and founding president of the Rotary Club of Bocas del Toro, opened the doors that let Ayuda serve the island schools. Give and Surf has served Bocas del Toro since 2011. Emily and Steve were introduced in March 2019, a month after she helped launch the new Bocas Rotary club, and they met in person that May, when Ayuda’s first Bocas mission treated 327 oral health patients.
Emily planned the screenings for the March 2020 Ayuda clinic by Give and Surf boat to the schools of Bastimentos, Bahia Roja, Bahia Honda, San Cristobal and Carenero. When COVID stopped the clinic, she rallied Bocas Rotarians and credited Steve with “assisting with water and supply distribution around the islands.” Together they grew the Bocas Bounty sweet potato project, and in 2021 Steve left about 200 almendro trees on the Give and Surf dock. “We could not launch our OHI and other programs here without your support,” Steve told her.
Dentists, hygienists, dental students and helpers of every kind are welcome. Tell us where you would like to serve and we will send you the clinic calendar.