24995: Hermantin(News) Art to raise funds to help ill children (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Thu, May. 05, 2005


CORAL GABLES
Art to raise funds to help ill children
A group of local Haitian Americans is raising money to care for kids who
need medical help. They're organizing an art gallery fundraiser.
BY JENNY JACOBS
Special to the Herald

Marc Arthur Charles of Port-de-Paix, Haiti, was burned so badly that his arm
and hand are now permanently fused to his chest. Doctors in Haiti didn't
have the resources to help the 15-year-old boy after a lamp exploded in his
home.

A group of local Haitian Americans -- headed by twin sisters and nurses Gina
and Ginette Eugene -- wants to help Marc and others like him get care in
Miami. They've set up a special account for Haitian children at the
International Kids Fund at Jackson Memorial Hospital, which helps Latin
American and Caribbean youngsters when doctors in their home countries
can't.

Friday, Galerie D'Art Nader in Coral Gables will host a fundraiser and
donate proceeds from the sale of works by Haitians and Haitian Americans to
the Haitian Fund with the group. Pieces, including some by Miami-based
Sophia Lacroix, who works at Haitian Neighborhood Center-Sant La, will be
sold for $100 to $50,000.

The money will help Marc, who is in Miami awaiting medical care, and a young
girl with a facial tumor. In the meantime, Marc, whose arm and chest fused
when the burns weren't properly bandaged, is being taken care of by the
Eugene family.

''It was natural in our heart to think about the kids in need in our country
because things are not good over there,'' said Ginette Eugene, who along
with her sister has teamed up with Galerie D'Art Nader co-owner Myriam Nader
to raise funds.

Gina and Ginette Eugene came to the United States in 1979 with their nursing
degrees and began working at Miami Shores Nursing Home. Since then, Gina,
who lives with her family in Miramar, has gone back to Haiti three or four
times a year to give clothing and medicine and to teach at the National
School of Nursing in Port-au-Prince.

In 2002, a priest the sisters knew in Haiti called to tell them of a
2-year-old child, Hans Roldino, in need or urgent heart surgery. The same
day, the sisters' organization to help Haitian families, Good Samaritans for
a Better Life, received official nonprofit status.

''But we had been spending our own working money and were becoming
penniless,'' Ginette said. She began to raise money while Gina quickly
traveled to Haiti to offer personal assistance to the child's family.
Ginette sat on the corner of Northeast Second Avenue and 83rd Street with a
picture of the child and a description of his situation written on a
cardboard poster.

She raised $1,007 that day and soon thereafter got in touch with the
International Kids Fund to help bring Roldino to the States. He was operated
on in 2003 and the sister's partnership with Jackson was born.