A Look Back and a Look Ahead

You have made so much happen this past year it is hard to know where to start. 2012 was a wonderful year for Help for Haiti and as we look ahead, 2013 may be even better!A LOOK BACK- 2012

1. Last May, 700 volunteers packed 147,000 meals for 247 school kids in Haiti at the Frank Jones Center in Portsmouth, NH.  This was enough food to provide a lunch to each child every school day of the year. With the help of local churches like Bethany in Greenland, NH and Redeemer Presbyterian in Concord, MA, we raised $38,000 to pay for the food from Feed My Starving Children and ship it to Haiti. Feed My Starving Children supported this effort along with a team of dedicated local volunteers. Thank you, everyone!
2. With the help of Celebration Community Beach Church in Naples, Florida, two new rooms were added to the school in Marmalade:  a secure storage room and a new classroom. They held a “Cement Block Party” for the supplies and raised over $7,200.
3. The school was wired for electricity this year and a new generator was provided for the church and school. The building is now useable in the evenings and music is available on Sunday mornings. Dale Flemming from Bethany Church did the wiring specifications and a Haitian electrician did a great job of installing the wiring.
4. Garden Irrigation Kits were introduced to the parents of the kids at the Marmalade School to increase their gardens and to begin asking parents to bring some portion of their increase in crops to support their school.  David Nystedt from Dover, NH donated the kits from Chapin Living Waters and the seeds from Hope Seeds.  More will be done with this in 2013.
5. Eight teachers, Pastor Villens, Marcot Vernois and Jean Nelson Denis were working on the ground in Haiti all year to make all of this happen.
6. Finally, we made a year-end appeal to help Pastor Villens get a home and Rose Marlaine Suprevil get to college next year.  You provided over $8,000 toward that goal.

We are truly humbled by the way all of you have responded to God’s call to help those in this world who live in conditions we would all find intolerable. He has blessed them through your outpouring of time, effort and generosity. And I am sure that just like all of those on the Help for Haiti team, you found yourself blessed by the very act of helping those who need it so badly.A LOOK AHEAD – 2013

1. On May 18^th we will conduct another Haiti Food Pack Event at the Frank Jones Center in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. We plan on packing over 120,000 meals for school kids in Marmalade, Haiti. Each child who attends our school gets a hot lunch and it makes a big difference in their learning ability. We will need 700 volunteers and need to raise 32 cents per meal to pay for the food and ship it to Haiti. That is $38,400. Feed My Starving Children will be there to train us and run the pack event. Please put May 18, 2013 on your calendar.
2. We will be focusing on the EMPLOY portion of our charity this year. We need to bring jobs to Haiti in order to change lives. Our goal is to partner with one or two companies that have the ability to grow and hire more people. Finding a way to bring low cost loans to small companies is not easy in Haiti where loans can cost 30 to 40% in interest per year. Our goal is to provide loans at 4 to 6% interest, to cover the cost of administration and allow the repayments to be loaned out on a recurring basis.
3. We are building a house for Pastor Villens and his family. Some of the funds were raised at the end of 2012 and phase one construction will begin in January. It is our goal to complete his house this year.
4. We have identified a young woman who is currently in an orphanage that wants to go to college in September. Her name is Rose Marlaine Suprevil and she is a hard-working and determined young lady. We raised some funds for her first year this past December and plan on completing the fundraising for her first year by Fall.
5. We will continue to support the 8 teachers at the Marmalade School with $60 per month for each teacher. Next year, when they return in September, we would like to raise it to $75 per month. We also provide a $120 monthly stipend to Pastor Villens.
6. We will continue our Garden Kit program and plan to expand it with another 25 Garden Kits this year. In April we will meet with the first 10 families and visit their gardens to see if we are in fact growing more vegetables and if they are making their payments to the school.
7. We continue to work towards buying a truck to keep in Haiti. Each trip we make we have been renting a diesel truck at a cost of over $800 a week. We would be able to deliver our food to the mountains and save the $360 delivery charge each month as well. So far we have $16,800 in a restricted account for a truck. It sounds like a lot for a used truck, but we are raising the money to ship it there and pay the duty on it. We need $25,000 to get it done.

We are listening for God’s leading in all these projects and are confident that if He wants it done, resources will come. We are so thankful for all of you and the real encouragement you provide. None of this would happen without you. If any of you would like to come to Haiti with me, I am planning two trips this year. Haiti TripsApril 15 to 24 Departing from Florida to Cap Haitien, Haiti on Monday the 15^th and returning to Florida on the 24^th. Cost is about $1800 for air in and out of Haiti plus food and lodging. Please email me if you want more details. It is possible for you return sooner if 10 days is too long to be away.October 14 to 23 This trip is the same cost and the work will be the same. We will be checking on the active projects we have underway, visiting the school, meeting with parents, checking on businesses and visiting orphanages we provide food to. We do not do physical labor, as with an unemployment rate of 80%, we hire labor in Haiti. We do provide specialized training when appropriate.Warmest Regards, Jim & Betsy Willey Save