Haiti relief from local kids

What is in a child’s heart seems to be the hub of local efforts to send help to the victims of the devastation left after the earthquake and aftershock destruction in Haiti.

Elaine Douglas said her two young granddaughters, Jordan, 6, and Brooke, 4, were watching television about the Haiti earthquake devastation and wanted to do something.

“They came up to me with sad, sad little eyes and said, ‘Grandma, we only have four dollars; will you give it to them?,’” Douglas said.
Douglas said they had two dollars each and both donated all they had. Douglas said she then brought the money to church and told her congregation about her granddaughters and asked each member to match the donation, collecting $278 that Sunday from the congregation at the First Presbyterian Church.

“All because of two little girls,” she said.
Douglas said the Presbyterian Church nationwide sends donations to Haiti all year. They also have missionaries there on a regular basis, as well as continuing to send help throughout this devastation. They also have another organization called the Haiti Education Foundation, according to Douglas. She said anyone may donate to the church and the treasurer sends it to the Haiti Disaster Fund, or donations may be made through the website haitifoundation.org.

Children at the First United Methodist church have also been a big part of the local efforts to send relief, as the preschool and after school care classes have been creating health kits.

“Our new pastor, Steve Johnson, showed the children a health kit during our chapel this week. Several children were interested in giving back to people with such a need,” FUMC School Director Betsy Still said.
The church collected specific items, one hand towel (15’x 25” up to 17’ by 27”,” no kitchen towels), one washcloth, one large sturdy comb (not pocket sized), one nail file or fingernail clippers (no emery boards or toenail clippers), one bath size bar of soap (3 oz. and up), one single non-child size toothbrush only in the original wrapper, and six adhesive plastic strip sterile bandages.

“The children will compile the donated single items into gallon plastic bags,” Still said.
FUMC Pastor Johnson said the church in Hope is the district collection site for the region.
“We have over 100 kits in our church. We hope between the church members and the preschool that we will fill up the truck we have outside,” Johnson said.

He said once they have collected and completed the kit making, the kits will be taken to the United Methodist Committee on Relief Sager Brown warehouse in Baldwin, La., to then be transported to Haiti. In church collections for the disaster, they have received two  of $3,000 in the last few weeks, according to Johnson.

First Baptist Church of Hope Pastor Mark Fischer said First Baptist coordinates with state offices that coordinate through the Florida Baptist Convention, which does have staff individuals already living and working in Haiti.
“Florida has a lot of Haitian churches. We have all those ties in place,” Fischer said.
Fischer said First Baptist has staff such as pastors and missionaries already in place in Haiti. They have heard from most of them, Fischer said, but could not confirm that all the First Baptist associated staff already living in Haiti had been confirmed safe.

“We can do relief without having to hire anyone. We use our people already in place on staff, so 100 percent of charity funds can go to relief efforts,” Fischer said.
He said many times when people donate money in a situation like this, that up to 25 percent of the money goes to administrative cost, which the Baptist organization can avoid.
Fischer also said locally people can donate to the church, assured that their total donation will go to relief, or visit the imb.org site and click on Haiti Response Relief to make an online donation.

Other local efforts include an idea from Vincent Wesley, president of the Black Historical and Development Society. Wesley said after his request, the board voted and approved to donate a percentage of the money made from the Annual Black History Banquet tickets to be given to Red Cross for Haiti.

 The tickets are $15 each for the banquet, which is to be held at the Hope High School cafeteria on Feb. 27, at 6 p.m., with speaker Wendell Griffen, according to Wesley.