3rd Annual Fundraiser a Big Success

Mount Victory Camp on St. Croix was the place to be February 25, 2007. Over 175 people showed up to participate in Haiti Community Support’s most important fund raiser of the year.

People took part in the live auction, silent auction, dance contest and a sumptuous pig roast. The party was jumping until after dark. The legendary Jamesie Brewster and his All Star Band played under the giant mango tree, their sweet Caribbean music brought the crowd to a dancin’-in-the-dirt frenzy! (Click for more fundraiser photos).

Mathilde challenged everyone to help support the Renaissance Elementary School in Haiti by telling the crowd, “We have 125 kids to teach and to feed. Help them with your donations by joining the Sponsor-A-Child Program, by bidding in the auctions, by joining HCS, and by volunteering to help.”

And the crowd responded. With more than $20,000 raised at the event, we assured one more year of operation of the school and the school lunch program. Lots of people signed up for the dollar-a-day Sponsor-A-Child Program, responding to the many photos and sketches we have of the school kids. Others donated goods and services such as a laptop, and a digital camera.

At the end of the day we made our financial target, and survival of the school is assured for another year. A lot of other help is lined up. And a core group is forming to help make the event even larger next year. Let us know if you’re interested in being involved.

Can You help? We need all kinds of help for the annual fundraiser party. Other fundraisers need organizing too: a big annual raffle, house parties and presentations for potential donors. if you want to help!

Building the New Renaissance School Building

Work has begun on the new schoolhouse! Last year we secured an incredible piece of land for the school. And this March we began building the schoolhouse. Construction in rural Haiti isn’t a matter of phoning a supply company to deliver the blocks…. Not only is there no phone, but there’s no building supply company to call! So first we need to make the concrete blocks for construction. Lots of them. And the villagers are hard at work right now. Five crews are working through the day: two “squads” bringing sand and caliche from mines near the town, mule skinners bringing bags of cement over the hill from Beaumont, a women and kids water squad bringing buckets from the spring a quarter mile away, and the block makers are mixing the ingredients and compressing the blocks using a long levered block-press under the direction of the supervisor “bos mason.”

It’s that time of year when there is no money in the village. The harvest for cash crops of beans and coffee are long finished. The dry season normally means one thing: less food. Our project to build the school is a double blessing for the village: The hot meal and $2.00/day each worker gets and the hope for the future that the new school gives has made this spring in Au Centre a joyful time. This is all happening thanks to the contributions of Ulla Neuburger, our earliest and most steadfast supporter. Ulla has always been ready to help, whether sponsoring our annual fundraiser events, help with suggestions and contacts, and as lead sponsor for purchasing the land and building the new school.

Our first phase of building is for an 8-room school building with an office and library. We’ll build from local materials, using village labor. We’ll finalize building plans and start site work in early May. We hope to be putting on the roof by autumn with the official schoolhouse opening in Spring 2008.

The land for the school is large enough for future developments: a food pavilion for lunches, a community garden with a nursery and demonstration plots, an incredible site for building some accommodations so there’s somewhere for visitors to stay, and a soccer field.

What you can do: Consider contributing to our Capital Fund. for more details.

Inoculation Program:

St. Croix Unitarian Universalist Fellowship held a Sunday worship at Mt Victory Camp in January. HCS made a presentation to the group and as a result a number of members signed up to help. Many made donations, and one member in particular made a special donation.

In our presentation we told the story of one 12-year-old boy in our village who had been stricken by polio and now spends his life sitting in the dirt in front of his family’s hut. Polio is a disease that had all but disappeared from Haiti, but is now coming back due to a lack of inoculations. Dr William Scott and his wife Melinda were moved to hear this, and met with us later to begin plans for dealing with this problem. Their lead donation will make it possible for us to begin research and planning for an inoculation program so none of our kids will ever again become such senseless victims. Question: Does your church or organization host meetings where HCS can make a presentation? If so, and let’s try to make it happen.

Volunteer News:

Maybe the most promising news of the last few months is the great help we are receiving from a growing cadre of volunteers. We are so energized by these great people. Ulla Neuburger as always is supporting our most ambitious efforts. From the very beginning she’s been a steady leader in so many ways. Without our management coach Jamila Hammad, Mathilde and Bruce would have continued running around in circles...she’s grounded us in the simple principals of getting things done. Bob Sifniades continues to do web page updates, and changes at the speed of light. We were overwhelmed by the detail and complexity of the IRS application until Hillair Bell agreed to breathe life into this arcane document. And her help signing up new Support-a-Child donors at the fundraiser was incredible! Friend and neighbor Gail Nealon made our presentation to the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship possible, Dr Bill and Melinda Scott are making the inoculation program a reality, Rotary West gave a substantial donation and continues working with us on finding funding for a water program. Thanks to Roger W. Morgan, as always, backing us up at Paradise FM 93.5, Gallows Bay Hardware Phil and Steph Cozier, and long time friend of HCS Jonathan Cohen at Sunny FM 99, Teresa and John Harper along with our friends at Plaza Extra Supermarket, who all made our fundraiser possible. Marie-Elise Witner, Susan Curtis, Annie Lang, Eric Stauder and the Mt Victory Camp gang were a vital part of the success, as were so many more too numerous to mention.

More Volunteers Urgently Needed!

With every new volunteer, more kids get to learn and more kids get to eat. Are you that special someone we are looking for? We need volunteers for Public Relations (press releases and liaison, photo ops, public service announcements), Events Planning and Execution (Annual fundraiser, new events, speaking opportunities), and Graphics Design/Display (brochures, fact sheets, displays). for more details.

Donate The Things We Need!

4X4 SUV or Truck. We can take delivery anywhere in the US or USVI. Needs to be in good shape and strong.
Desktop Computer: Modern and functioning.
Video Camcorder: with Photo Voltaic Panels/Inverter.
School Furnishings: Do you have a good contact in the states for old school desks, chairs, library and science lab furniture? We have a whole school to outfit!
Frequent Flier Miles: We travel to the states for buying trips and to talk to donors and to Haiti regularly. Travel is a big expense – got miles?
Condo or Apartment in New York/Miami/Boston: Have a condo we can use? We make regular buying trips to the states, and are lining speaking engagements in these major cities. Hotels are costly!
Corporate Jet Travel: It takes us two days to fly to Haiti (requires Miami overnight). A corporate jet flies from the VI to Port au Prince in 90 minutes.

for more details.

Dr. Paul Farmer Visits St. Croix

Anyone working on poverty and health issues, in Haiti or almost anywhere in the world, knows well the name of Dr. Paul Farmer and his organization, Partners In Health. His clinic in Central Haiti has over 100 beds and two operating theatres. It gives free medical care to tens of thousands of poor farmers. Over 5,000 children are in schools supported by Partners in Health.

He has written books addressing the root causes of drug resistant TB and AIDS. He writes articulately about our responsibility to do something about these terrible scourges. He is now working in Russia, Peru, Rwanda and Haiti. He is the subject of the Pulitzer Prize winning book by Tracy Kidder, “Mountains Beyond Mountains.”

We had the great honor to spend time with Dr Farmer and with his co-founder of Partners In Health, Ophelia Dahl, when they visited St. Croix at the end of March, where he was visiting one of his long-time sponsors and friend, the owner of an investment firm here on St. Croix.

What a great opportunity! It was a real pleasure to talk with two such wonderful people. We learned a lot about their successes, and we established future contact for Dr. Farmer’s group to assist Haiti Community Support in our efforts to bring medical care to our area of Haiti. We’ll be visiting their clinic this summer to learn about immunization and other health programs. A fortuitous meeting with two real-life heroes!

Suggested Reading: “Mountains Beyond Mountains,” “The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World” by Tracy Kidder, Random House. “The Uses of Haiti” by Dr Paul Farmer, Common Courage Press

Haiti News Brief:

The security situation continues to improve in Port au Prince and other hotspots like Gonaive. The UN Security Mission has extended its mission for another year. Life in the countryside remains peaceful. Despite promises of help from international organizations and nations like the USA and European Union, very little money is actually getting into use. In our area of Southern Haiti we see no projects in health or education, and little being done in any area of development. Especially daunting are the treacherous roads making economic and social progress so difficult.

A Seasoned Administrator Joins our Ranks

Haiti Community Support reached a huge milestone this April. We are so very proud to announce that our friend (and HCS management coach) Jamila Hammad, has agreed to be our Managing Director. With Bruce and Mathilde now in Haiti for 3 months, and with volunteers, donors and important contacts to deal with, it couldn’t happen at a better time.

Jamila is well-qualified for the job. Her resume includes extensive experience in the corporate world in the fields of marketing and business administration.

Immediately, her job is to stay in touch with our membership, to get an efficient system of handling the administrative details of HCS, to seek new private donations, and to begin the process of identifying funding organizations and proposing projects to them.

Please give Jamila a big hug when you see her, contact her at any time with your questions or with your help We wish her a lot of good luck. Can our tiny home-grown effort grow into an organization that can make a real difference in Haiti? Ask Jamila. She knows it can!

From Mathilde:

In the spring of 2004 we invited our friends to share in helping children from a forgotten village…my birthplace. So many people helped us. Working with you on projects for my native country of Haiti gives me a great boost. It makes me more dedicated than ever.

By starting as small as we have, I‘ve learned how to overcome obstacles to help my village. I’m so proud for what we have all done. I escaped from that world and my children are safe. But the others aren’t safe. I see the sweet children and their thin bodies. It’s a crime for a mother or father to have to see their children like this.

I’m so grateful to all of you who are taking this long journey with us. Thank you for the trust and faith you place in us. Your support brings life to what we are doing: making it possible for us to travel again to those mountains to try to do what we can. Thank you so much.

Mathilde Aurelien-Wilson
April 25, 2007

Haiti Community Support is a Virgin Islands Not-for-Profit Organization.

For more details visit our home page.