The history of Cross Cultural Impact begins when Jim Allen and Annette Handal Diaz meet for the first time at a Trinity Hispanic Ministry meeting in 2005. Little did they know that their newly formed friendship would blossom into a thriving international ministry.

Before this time, Annette and her husband Mauro lived in Honduras with their two young sons, one of whom is autistic. Annette worked as a pharmacist and Mauro was a practicing physician and healthcare administrator. Even though they worked in the medical field, it was hard for them to find the support they needed for their son. Annette and Mauro never considered leaving Honduras, but after meeting an American missionary who provided them with connections that could help their son, they had a very difficult choice to make. After careful prayer and consideration, the Handal Diaz family decided that Annette would travel to Florence, South Carolina with their two young sons while Mauro stayed behind. While the initial separation was difficult, the trip would change their lives forever.

Jim Allen and his wife Patsy were, and still are, members of Trinity Presbyterian Church. At the time Jim was employed at the State Health Department focusing on developing rural health networks through out the state. As such, Jim was part of organizing the Trinity Hispanic Ministry. He and Patsy attended meetings regularly doing what they could for the community.

Soon after Jim and Annette met, Annette began working as the Director of the Trinity Hispanic Ministry. Mauro was later able to join his family in the US in 2007 and began working at the Coastal Plain Rural Health Network. Around the same time, Jim was awarded a three-year Rural Health Outreach Grant. This multi-county grant, funded by the March of Dimes and the federal government, allowed Maruo to provide prenatal education in Spanish to Hispanic women, most of whom were uninsured or hadn't seen a doctor during their pregnancies.

Through their work with the grant and the Hispanic ministry, Annette and Jim deepened their relationships within the local community which led them to found Carolinas Cross Cultural Health Services in 2012 when the grant ended.

In 2019, they shifted the focus to educational services to better serve local Hispanic children who were struggling academically. Because of the shift in focus, they changed the name to Cross Cultural Educational Impact. Support for this mission grew quickly as have the challenges facing the local immigrant community in the Pee Dee. To better meet the current needs of the local Hispanic community, Cross Cultural Educational Impact is now Cross Cultural Impact. In addition to continuing educational services for children and their families, Cross Cultural Impact now also offers health education. They have successfully partnered with Mercy Medical Free Clinic, Helping Florence Flourish, and The Jeffery D. Sutherland Project who has a Christian clinical psychologist in Mexico who provides mental health interventions remotely in Spanish.

What began as a family's search for a young boy to reach his full potential has become a thriving ministry that serves so many families in the local community.