23382: (Hermantin) Miami-Herald-Miami relief group's mission: Give Haitians the tools t (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Tue, Oct. 05, 2004





STORM RECOVERY


Miami relief group's mission: Give Haitians the tools to rebuild

A relief effort headed by a missionary group with ties to Haiti planned to
urge the community to keep donating items ranging from diapers to Dimetapp
-- and also to throw in tools for rebuilding.

BY ELAINE DE VALLE

edevalle@herald.com


To the canned beans, powdered milk and children's Tylenol being flown to
Haiti, relief workers at a storefront warehouse in Little Havana want to add
a few inedible items -- hammers, nails, saws and maybe the plywood that
South Florida homeowners nailed over their windows last month.

Volunteers at Amor en Acción -- a missionary organization that has worked
with priests in the hardest-hit areas of northwestern Haiti for years -- are
sorting items to help Haiti through its recovery from Tropical Storm Jeanne,
which struck the country before becoming a hurricane.

But what makes this relief effort different from most others is that the
organization is also seeking basic carpentry tools and materials like
plywood to help storm-struck Haitians rebuild.

DONATING PLYWOOD

''People will be taking off the boards they used on their windows for the
last month or so,'' said José Basulto, leader of Brothers to the Rescue,
which will deliver the first 10,000 pounds of goods as soon as this weekend.

``Most people don't have a place to store them. They'll take up space in the
garage or be ruined out in the rain, and we think this is a better option:
Give them to us and we'll give them to people who really need them.''

The plywood would go later by sea, he said.

Amor en Acción, a group tied to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Miami, is
working with Brothers to the Rescue and Ideal Magazine on the drive.

The group also needs many of the same items that other relief agencies are
collecting: vitamins, over-the-counter medications, first-aid supplies,
powdered milk, baby cereal, baby formula in powder form, bottled water,
nonperishable food -- especially in pull-top cans -- and can openers, said
Linda Perez, one of the volunteers coordinating the sorting and transporting
of the goods.

''We hope to put a can opener in every big box. Otherwise, what are they
going to do with all the canned food?'' Perez said.

Though local parishes and Catholic schools have been collecting goods for at
least a week, the three groups plan to call on the community today to step
up donations.

MEDICINE SHORTAGE

''We're getting a lot of people already donating food, but we're not getting
medical supplies,'' said Teresita Gonzalez, director of Amor en Acción,
which means Love in Action.

The items are going to go to parish priests in two dioceses in the
hardest-hit areas of Haiti: Gonaives and Port-de-Paix, dioceses the group
has worked with for years.

''We're in contact with the priests that do most of the relief work in those
areas, so we are very familiar with the area and their needs,'' González
said.

''This will help the different clinics that they run and the different
projects that they have,'' she said. ``The concept of the church is very
different there.

They are everything there because there is no government structure to run
social projects.

``Those are the first responders on the ground for this kind of thing. Right
now, they are isolated and wiped out.''


    email this       print this

_________________________________________________________________
On the road to retirement? Check out MSN Life Events for advice on how to
get there! http://lifeevents.msn.com/category.aspx?cid=Retirement