The day before 11-year-old Josue Ochoa died in 2013, pediatric heart surgeon Gerardo Davalos, a member of the Rotary Club of Quito, Ecuador, walked into the boy’s hospital room to say good-bye.

Said Davalos, “I’ll never forget how strong Josue was in that moment. He wasn’t concerned about himself. He was more worried about his mom and dad. He kept telling them that everything was going to be OK and that he’d lived a great life. He was an amazing child.”

Five years earlier, funded by a Rotary Foundation grant that paid for corrective heart surgeries for underprivileged children at Quito’s Hospital Metropolitano, Dr. Davalos had performed a complicated operation that saved Josue’s life.

Josue is one of the more than 120 children on whom Davalos has performed free corrective heart surgeries since his club, along with the Rotary Club of Wheeling Illinois, USA, initiated the grant project in 2002.

Frank Belote is a member of Washington Noon Rotary. The club meets Mondays at noon at King Chicken. For more information, visit washingtonnoonrotary.org.