Frequently Asked Questions

Is my contribution tax deductible?
Your contribution to Haiti Community Support is tax deductible to the extent allowable by law. Haiti Community Support is registered in the US Virgin Islands as a tax deductible charitable organization (EIN 66-0656622), and is registered as a 501(c)(3) organization.

What can I expect when I sponsor a child?
When you sponsor a child through Haiti Community Support you are funding the child's education, which also ensures that the child receives one hot meal. We will do our best to provide you with a photo and we hope to expand to information about the child's family, housing and schooling in occasional updates.

Because of the dire poverty of most families in the village, the living conditions of most children are very similar. When they are not in school, they are helping their families by carrying water from the well or working in the fields. Children have no organized recreational activities, no hobbies and no toys.

Because of the hot lunch provided in school, we can see a marked difference in weight/health/stamina between those children of the same family who are attending school and those who are not, and to surrounding villages.

If I sponsor a child, can I communicate with that child?
Most of the children in school are just learning how to read and write. It would be difficult for you to have direct communication with your child until later in their school careers.

Why do you need to build a school?
Most of the education in Haiti is delivered by private organizations (mostly churches and private for-profit schools). All of these charge money for their schools. Au Centre is a village of sub-subsistence farming with no money for education. We saw a great need in this region for a school that could provide free education.
Ideally, someday, when Haiti becomes stable and its government institutions are in place and operating, we would incorporate our school into the national school system. This would ensure that education at Renaissance School remains free (like the goverment schools) and will remain so per its charter.

Is the Haitian government involved in any of your projects?
No. The Haitian government provides little or no infrastructure support in the area of Au Centre/Beaumont. There are no paved roads, no electricity, no running water, no health care and no adequate food. It is an area considered remote even by Haitian standards and is forgotten by the government and international aid organizations.
We are doing this work because no one else is doing it. We operate under arduous conditions, but the need is so extreme that any help we provide makes a world of difference for the village.

What dangers do you face in doing this work?
Because of the general lack of infrastructure in Haiti, road conditions are extremeley poor. It takes two days to traverse the 130 miles of rugged, mountanous terrain from Port au Prince to Au Centre. Therefore, one of the biggest dangers we face are road accidents while traveling in Haiti.

Lack of clean water and the threat of communicable diseases is another great danger we confront, particularly in the village where there is no medical infrastructure yet in place.

Surprising to most people, violence is the least of our worries because we spend most of our time in Au Centre, where the people are kind and friendly and very welcoming.

How do you operate in Haiti?
We founded a sister non-profit organization in Haiti called Groupe de Support a la Communaute Haitienne. Mathilde Wilson is one of five board members, and the group has 40 members from the village of Au Centre/Beaumont.

Haiti Community Support has full administrative control of Groupe de Support a la Communaute Haitienne. As such, all moneys are distributed with explicit instructions detailing exactly how the moneys are to be spent (which project, what purpose, etc) and followed through with expense reports. In addition, Haiti Community Support founders Mathilde and Bruce Wilson travel to Haiti twice a year to oversee major expenditures and inspect the progress of ongoing projects.

Do you operate like other aid organizations?
We are more efficient than the typical international aid organization because they usually support an expensive office in the USA or France, plus an expensive office in Port au Prince and maybe even a regional office in Au Cayes, Haiti. Haiti Community Support works in the village of Au Centre with minimum expenses.

How we are building the school is a case-in-point for how we are operating. We are building at the absolute lowest cost because we're working directly with local villagers. There are no middle men, no finance authority holding money and taking their piece, no separate contractor etc. A typical NGO would get a quote from a builder (who inflates the price knowing it's outside money, and an outside customer). They pay consultant engineers, draftsmen and architects at First World prices. Then there are cost overruns, various "problems" requiring more money, payoffs, etc. Compared to other school building projects in the region, we get the job done at about one third the cost of others doing the same thing. That's not an exaggeration.

Who has ownership of Haiti Community Support projects in the village?

Our educational, health and economic programs are designed and executed by the villagers under Groupe de Support a la Communaute Haitienne, our sister non-profit organization in Haiti comprising 40 village elders. The land and the school building are also owned by this organization.

What will happen when the village of Au Centre becomes self sufficient?
Haiti Community Support is interested in establishing Au Centre as a base for education of all sorts throughout our region. We are located as a gateway to the deep mountains of this region, and there are many small hamlets and communities for whom Au Centre would be a place to send their kids for elementary school and vocational school, and from where we would run satellite schools to these desperately poor communities.

Can I visit Au Centre?
A visit to Au Centre is a true expedition to a remote region with no electricity or running water. This friendly mountain village has spectacular views. Macaya Peak is a two-day hike from Au Centre through beautiful valleys, rushing streams with bathing pools, and through coffee growing villages rarely seen by outsiders. Our goal is to build comfortable thatch structures to accommodate visitors in a camp-like atmosphere. If you are interested in visiting Au Centre please contact us.

How was Haiti Community Support created?
Mathilde Aurelien Wilson, a resident of St. Croix, US Virgin Islands, never forgot where she came from. Her roots go back to the tiny hamlet of Au Centre in the remote Beaumont region, on the southern mountains of Haiti. She explains it this way: "If Haiti is the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, then Beaumont is the most impoverished part of Haiti, a place forgotten even in Haiti."

While Mathilde is one of the lucky few who got an education, her mother and brother continue to live in Au Centre. In 2004 she returned to the village to visit her family. Seeing the many children who could not afford to attend the small local elementary school, Mathilde and her husband Bruce gave scholarships to a few children. Back on St. Croix, Mathilde pondered how so few dollars made a world of difference for those children, and imagined the possibilities. Before returning to Haiti in 2005, Mathilde and Bruce held a fundraiser at Mount Victory Camp featuring Jamesie and the All Stars and a succulent Crucian Pig Roast. The community responded enthusiastically and Haiti Community Support was born.