Help for Haiti from St. Philip

Thank you for your generous response to the emergency relief for our sister parish in Haiti. Your gifts of $3,000.00 have been wire-transferred to Father Kensy, the pastor of St. Therese in Boileau. He and the parish leadership team are establishing a community food bank. They will purchase bulk food (for example, 100 lb bags of rice), then distribute the smaller amounts to households.

We have told them that they are in your prayers and that additional help is promised. We have commitments of an additional $1,600.00 and about 125 St. Philip parishioners are mailing additional gifts. A special thanks to the Knights of Columbus. Some of the money will be used to buy seeds to plant as they start their recovery.

Recovery and rebuilding is starting. The water is receding. The school and clinic survived without damage. Several families used the second floor of the school as their emergency shelter when their homes were washed away. They will, of course, have to move out soon so school can resume in a week or so. The diagnostic equipment and the beds in the clinic were not damaged. Although some supplies such as bandages were damaged, the clinic will be operational and able to treat patients quickly. This is important since so many of the villagers suffer from chronic undernourishment. They are vulnerable to infections and virus disease rapidly escalating if they are not treated. The rugged hand pumps survived and the wells your generous gifts funded are able to provide clean drinking water. This is, literally, saving lives. Overall, it is much better than it would have been without your help. Thank you.

Meanwhile, we are also looking beyond hurricanes to long-term assistance. Our primary goal remains to build infrastructure that accelerates achieving self-supportability.  Please continue your daily sacrifice to put something in the “Happy Box” each day. These will fund long-term village development like the Tilapia Farm. We will provide updates on this website, http://haitianpilgrims.org/.  If you do not have a “Happy Box” and wish to add your support, click on this Hyperlink,  How can I help? .

2008 Christmas in July Fundraiser Update

We are so grateful to all of you! You took a record number of coin boxes and gift tags to help our brothers and sisters in Boileau, Haiti. To date we have received close to $28,000 in gift tag donations.

As I write this, the news is reporting 163 people dead in Haiti from Hurricane Hanna, people had been without food or water for four days. By the time you read this, poor Haiti will have been hit by Ike. Boileau has been flooded, their medical supplies, food and crops destroyed, the water well pumps are under water and we have yet to hear how many must be replaced. This is crushing to the people as our wells are the only source of clean water they’ve had since we started with the 1st well in 2001/2002. At that time 20% of the children under 5 were dying from water born diseases, with the wells that your donations provided, we eradicated this problem. Please pray that some of the wells are still in good working order.

When we started the fund raiser in July, our goal was to raise $70,000. Of course with the devastation our brothers and sisters are facing, the need is far greater. Our plan is still to build the tilapia fish ponds, as this will provide both food and income.

Please mail your gift tag donations in the envelope provided, or drop them off at Mass. Keep those coin boxes out in the open and remember that only $1 per day will change lives. The coin box has been referred to in the past as a “Happy Box” because it enabled us to bring the happiness of health, education and financial independence to our brothers and sisters. Our coin boxes will now be the life-line to help lift our brothers and sisters out of this devastation. A daily gift of $1 will fill the box and amount to $100 by the end of October. The gift tag and coin box donations are what will enable us to feed the hungry school children their lunches, replace the medical supplies, buy seed to replace
the crops, buy the chicks, pigs, goats, cows and bulls so the farmers can
recover. You can help others begin businesses with sewing machines, funds for
our micro-credit program and continue to pay the salaries of the medical doctor
and nursing staff for continued on-site health care at the clinic. And soon,
build a tilapia fish farm…..

Thank you for your prayers for all the people of Haiti, especially our
brothers and sisters of St. Theresa’s parish in Boileau, and thank you for your
continued support and generosity for the Haitian Pilgrims programs that help
these poorest of the poor.