Miami lawyer can't ignore the 'forgotten children'.

Miami lawyer O. Frank Valladares thought he'd casually tag along with his future wife on a mission trip to the Dominican Republic, take a little vacation from the stresses of work, maybe do a little scuba diving.

But what he encountered when he stepped inside an orphanage in 1999 shocked him changed his life, and inspired him to do everything he could to rescue what he calls "the forgotten children."

"I had never experienced such deplorable conditions in my life. The first thing that hit me as I walked into the orphanage was the stench of human excrement and urine, which permeated all of my clothing and even my skin, and made breathing an arduous task," 45-year-old Valladares recalled.

The facility itself, he said, "was in a state of ruin"- no running water, no air-conditioning, no working toilets, exposed electrical wiring, broken windows, deteriorating walls, and leaky ceilings.

Here, 70 children with severe disabilities and special needs, most abandoned at birth, were warehoused. The 11 people in the mission group who volunteered to help included two doctors, two nurses, two preschool teachers, a massage therapist a beauty salon receptionist, a youth minister, a pastor, and one lawyer.

"I could envision the roles that would be played out by the doctors, the nurses, and the teachers. But what possible purpose could be served by having a lawyer on this journey?" Valladares wondered.

He soon found out as he focused his attention on one 8-year-old boy they nicknamed Cappuccino. Naked, the boy was keep in a 3-foot-by-4-foot cage, with little food and water, because he was hyperactive, the orphanage staff explained.

"This sight just broke my heart, and I have not been the same since then," Valladares said. "Many of the children were kept in cages and literally treated like animals, and all of them were malnourished. My day-to-day life problems now seem to be high-class problems, and I'm grateful for having them."

Together with his wife, Lourdes Valladares, a third-grade teacher, they have created a nonprofit Christian organization called Project ChildHelp, whose purpose is to provide humanitarian aid in the form of food and medical care to the orphans in Santo Domingo and Nagua. The Spanish translation is Proyecto Ayuda al Ninos, whose acronym is PAN, or "bread."

"Frank has gone on every single trip," said his wife, who helps organize the missions. "We don't take vacations. Our honeymoon was a mission trip in February 2000. His whole heart is...