30281: Benson RE: 30273: Craig (news) Haiti's street kids given a lift (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Legrace Benson <legrace@twcny.rr.com>

Re: 30273 Street Kids
	It was heartening to see Freeman's fine photos and read an update about
progress at "the Village."  Several years ago, when some of that lush
greenery was still a hope for the future, I made several visits to the
downtown drop in center and also to the land to observe the work that was
going on.  It was heartening to see youngsters learning all sorts of
skills -reading, writing, math, and also how to grow things and harvest, how
to build, how to create something out of anything handy, how to collaborate
in a game and also in daily life.  Impressive. A couple or so years ago
someone persuaded Douglas Perlitz, who devotes every breath and prayer to
this project, to take a short dinner break at a restaurant. When he
discovered that the waiter was one of the kids who had been in the first
group to be at the Village and to finish school his delight was boundless.

There are other stories like this from one end of Haiti to the other, and it
is gratifying to see such a report.

I think Perlitz would be the first to put the focus of attention on the
young Haitians who are the ones creating these successes in their lives.