By: Joel Hunter MD

If you had been standing alongside I-4 just north of Orlando on June 11, 1985, you would have seen an old 1978 black sedan drive by with the Hunter family inside. I would have been in between my parents on the bench seat in the front. That was the day our family journeyed from Indiana to form roots in Orlando.

It wasn’t until much later that we got to see what that life in Orlando would look like.

My parents, Dr. Joel C. Hunter and my mother Becky, went on to build Northland Church into a place that serves 12,000 congregants each weekend, and several times that in the community each week.

My two brothers, Josh and Isaac, and I learned from a young age that whatever we did with our lives, it better be for the good of other people and not just ourselves. “The Hunters are givers, not takers,” was an oft-repeated theme in my house growing up. It was a message that made less sense in middle school than it does now.

Josh went on to build Northland’s incredible building, and then to build Summit Church’s building and oversee the operations, IT, HR, and finance side of that organization. He ran operations at both churches for 13 years. Isaac started Summit Church that now has 4,000 attendees and leads community service days that draw 1,500 people to serve throughout Orlando every 3 months.

After concluding his work at Summit, Josh agreed to help me start Hunter Vision. I’d been away at school and various medical institutions for over a decade and couldn’t have possibly been able to afford (or more importantly, been able to trust) someone of Josh’s unique ability for such a huge job. Plus, and this is an unimaginably wonderful plus, it meant that I could focus on people exclusively in practice and leave all business details to my brother.

As we began working together, we realized we had something much more important that made our partnership in this endeavor different from any other medical clinic. We were brothers that had been raised with the same values. We both desire that Hunter Vision be a place that gives to the people around us rather than only taking. We want to do good for those who visit us in this clinic, and to those who will never see this place.

We decided that from the beginning, we would give 15 cents on every dollar we make to organizations that help people in need. Right now, that takes the form of mission teams from Northland and Summit Church, but we are open to other endeavors as well. Our main goal is to help people see the world better, not just to better see the world.