After a long career as a public high school math teacher, USF College of Public Health (COPH) alumnus Daniel Carella plans to retire next year and focus on growing his nonprofit, Relief Share, full time.

Carella started Relief Share in 2003 while teaching international baccalaureate math at Lecanto High School in Lecanto, Fla. Combining student volunteerism and service learning with medical surplus recovery, Relief Share provides quality service-learning opportunities for students.

After he began collecting surplus supplies for the nonprofit, Carella partnered with charity organizations in Miami and Tampa that would take the donated supplies and ship them to places where they were most needed, such as Haiti and other locations around the world.

“One charity in Tampa, CardioStart International, has been shipping supplies all over the world since the 1980s,” Carella said. “We made a connection with them, and the founder has come to talk to students here and I would bring students there, to Tampa, and they would load cargo bins with surplus from the hospitals in Tampa.”

Carella’s was directly influenced to start the nonprofit while attending the COPH as graduate student. He was introduced to the field while visiting his brother in Gabon, Africa.

“I spent two months visiting my brother who was serving as a Peace Corps volunteer. I was able to meet many volunteers who had roles as public health educators. Meeting with volunteers and being able to drive the entire country and observe the obvious health disparities helped me to see the lack of public health in certain areas,” he said.

In 2001, Carella decided to go back to school to earn his online MPH from the COPH.

“I was an older student, already in my late 40s with two children at home while being three counties away teaching high school full time,” he said. “Time away was a bit of a sacrifice, but it was completely worth the benefits.”

Carella said that the public health practice concentration was a great fit for him.

“I was able to take at least one course in just about every other concentration from epidemiology to global health to health informatics,” he said. “They have all proved highly useful for Relief Share’s nonprofit mission of responding to health care and natural disaster response needs in the developing world.”

While starting his nonprofit, he also helped found the USF Health International Health Service Collaborative (IHSC) in 2005.

“The inaugural IHSC trip was to Peguche, Ecuador. It was an effort started by USF Morsani College of Medicine alum Dr. Samuel Crane. On this trip, about 30 USF Health students traveled for a week to Peguche on a public health mission that included health screenings, administering anti-parasite medications, and working on a water system repair for a system serving six villages in the region,” he said. “I was starting Relief Share at this time, and in conjunction with this trip, I was able to coordinate over 30 boxes of medical surplus to be taken as cargo on our flight. I worked with IHSC officers to arrange for each graduate student to dedicate one of their two allowed luggage pieces to be a box of Relief Share medical donations from a Florida hospital.”

After graduation, Carella continued his career as a math teacher and mentor while also expanding Relief Share.

“Relief Share has grown to sponsor many student service-learning projects, including sending medical surplus, family health kits and high-protein prepackaged meals to regions overseas affected by natural disasters and to migrant worker families here in Florida,” he said. “Since 2010, I have served as club director of the rotary-sponsored interact service-learning club helping students earn community service hours required for graduation, scholarships and entrance into top tier colleges and universities.”

Most recently, Carella has been working to provide aid to Ukraine, even traveling to Poland to deliver the surplus medical supplies himself.

“On my June trip to Poland, I was able to make friends there and now know the customs process well. I feel I’m in a much better position to get donations to recipients and hospitals there that have already thanked us,” he said. “I also want Relief Share to get back to our original mission also of helping improve health care in developing countries, especially closer to Florida and Latin America. Finally, I’m hoping Relief Share can expand our pre-packaged rice and soy protein meals for delivery in aftermath of natural disasters and to the highest food insecure areas.”

After his retirement, Carella is excited to continue expanding and  growing Relief Share.

“I have one more year of teaching. After that, I intend to grow my nonprofit and work to expand the number of hospitals we collect from. Since I won’t be working directly with the students at Lecanto High School, I’m planning to build a broader base of community volunteers to help with sorting, monitoring inventory and packing medical surplus,” he said. “This could include current and retired health professionals, university students and many of the hundreds of alumni students I’ve worked with over the years.”

COPH Alumni Fast Five:

What did you dream of becoming when you were young? 

Growing up in New Jersey, I became interested in improving environmental health, so environmental science is what interested me the most. I began an environmental science track at Rollins, but then decided on a career in teaching.

Where would we find you on the weekend? 

At the Relief Share warehouse, with volunteers sorting/taking inventory of medical donations or on a long bike ride, in a pool exercising, or working on a home garden

What is the last book you read? 

“The Reconstruction of Nations,” by Timothy Snyder

What superpower would you like to have? 

Empathy (I didn’t know it’s also a superpower).

What’s your all-time favorite movie?  

I only recently saw “CODA,” and right after thought this may be the best movie I’ve ever seen.

Story by Caitlin Keough, USF College of Public Health