When the Duk Lost Boys Clinic in South Sudan opened its doors in May, it was the culmination of more than three years of work and fundraising, much of which took place in Skaneateles through the efforts of the First Presbyterian Church, where project leader and Sudanese “Lost Boy” John Dau is a parishioner.

The clinic now treats as many as 70 people a day, and two babies - both named Duk - have been born there.

“It has been very beneficial to the lives of the people in the area,” the Rev. Dr. Craig Lindsey said of the clinic, the first of its kind in Duk County. The facility was completed with the support of the nonprofit American Care for Sudan Foundation.

In late June, Dau, one of four Lost Boys sponsored by First Presbyterian, and a group of retired professionals formed the John Dau Sudan Foundation, headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah. The larger foundation's mission is to build five more clinics, along with schools, in South Sudan.

Skaneateles resident Jack Howard, who served as construction manager of the first clinic, will continue to serve in this role and will be on the board of directors for the newly established foundation.

Howard has established a very close bond with Dau, who is the executive director of JDSF.

When Dau arrived in the states in 2001 after surviving a civil war, Howard took Dau under his wing, introducing him to everything from American currency to how to drive. Howard said that he has been very proud to see the first clinic completed and the way it has been able to help improve the lives of the people of southern Sudan.

“John asked us to help build a clinic,” Howard recalled. “That was September of 2004. It took us a couple of years to get going in the right direction, but once we got started, we got it put together in about two-and-a-half months. We had a lot of help from the Skaneateles community.”

Howard said that the first clinic cost approximately $440,000, much of which was raised by generous contributions as well as from profits earned by Dau's book and a Sundance Film Festival award-winning documentary, both titled, “God Grew Tired of Us.”

The clinic was able to come together so quickly because of the relationship that was established with Tech Serve International and the time and effort of volunteers, Howard said.

“Tech Serve pre-fabbed everything,” Howard said. “And it was packed and shipped from the states. All we had to buy over there was cement. We had a lot of volunteer help, too, with crews of people going over there for two weeks at a time. It is a hard climate to endure, but they went and worked, and we got this together.”

With this new foundation, the scope of the project is now much larger. Howard estimated that with five clinics and the accompanying schools, the price tag will be about $2 million.

“We have a lot of good people on board,” Howard said. “There are two doctors on the board, eye surgeons. We have some really dedicated people, and I think we can do this. We'll just build them one at a time.”

This time around, there are plans to further help the people of the region by making it a much more hands-on project.

“We want to train local crews to do the work,” Howard said. “If we have a local workforce that can handle the climate there, we can work full time from clinic to clinic and get things built more quickly.”

While the first clinic is a start, Howard said that these other clinics and schools are very much in demand in the area. He hopes that as the project progresses, the foundation will be able to bring these needed resources to the region.

“We have to build the infrastructure,” Howard said. “From there we'd like to have a whole network of health care.

“Right now, there are no schools, no books,” he continued. “We want to make it possible for these children to learn to read and write and go on to high school and even college. We'll be focusing on grammar schools; they don't have anything like this in southern Sudan. But hopefully we'll be able to bring this to the people in the area.”