The first construction team has arrived at Heart to Heart!
Darcy Lamoureau and a team of 6 other men and 1 woman, all from Alberta, raised $80,000 to fill two containers with tents, construction supplies, 9 tons of concrete, lumber, mixers and tools. One of these containers will be arriving tomorrow and the team will spend the next 11 days setting up two large structural tents, (24' x 32' each) complete with wooden floors. One tent will house a temporary kitchen and the other will be used as a guest house for mission teams arriving over the next several years. Each tent is fully containerd with power and fans and is guaranteed to last 20 years. The guest house will be divided in half for men and women, and later on, another team will construct a mezzanine inside the tent to accommodate couples travelling together. Darcy and his team also plan on building a carpentry shop to house all of the tools including table saws, so that future teams will have the necessary equipment to do their work.
Please check out Rebecca's blog for pictures of their progress over the next coupld of weeks: www.rebeccalarkin.blogspot.com
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Sunday, April 18, 2010
April 15, 2010
Three months have passed since the devastating earthquake of Jan. 12, 2010. Haitians are slowly recovering from the traumatic experience and although things are not back to normal, new routines are being established. We are happy to report that all classes have begun again this week. Teachers are gathering their students under a large tent that is also used as church. We started the 2008 school year with 350 students, then in September of 2009, when our brand new school was completed, we jumped in enrolment to a little over 400, and we now have 442 children attending classes from Preschool 1 through to Grade 6. Approximately 90% of schools in Port-au-Prince and Grande Goave were damaged or destroyed in the earthquake, and school has not re-started for most of them. Although our school building is not yet serviceable, we are taking in as many new children as we can. Please check out pictures in Rebecca's blog of the temporary school and the children playing in the playground. (www.rebeccalarkin.blogspot.com)
After hundreds of man-hours and buckets of sweat, the final cement pieces of the school roof were knocked down yesterday, which means it is now safe to begin the construction of our new kitchen/dining room/food depot. The blue prints and floor plans have been finalized and the foundation work will begin in the next week.
Tiled washrooms complete with two shower stalls, 2 toilets and sinks have just been built directly behind the Children's Home to accommodate the community of people living on our compound in tents. Another separate washroom facility similar to the first, is under construction at the front of the Children's Home, to be used by the orphans. Competitions have begun to win the right to the first shower!
The fourth container of relief supplies was filled today at the Abbotsford warehouse - filled to capacity with a variety of food and a few construction supplies. It will leave tomorrow and arrive in Port-au-Prince in 34 days. Vineyard church plans to take a mision team to Haiti to meet the container when it arrrives and help coordinate the distribution of the food. By working with Pastor Luc's network of colleagues, the food gets through to some of the more remote, poorest areas in Haiti. We have enough food left in our warehouse to fill at least three more containers.
After hundreds of man-hours and buckets of sweat, the final cement pieces of the school roof were knocked down yesterday, which means it is now safe to begin the construction of our new kitchen/dining room/food depot. The blue prints and floor plans have been finalized and the foundation work will begin in the next week.
Tiled washrooms complete with two shower stalls, 2 toilets and sinks have just been built directly behind the Children's Home to accommodate the community of people living on our compound in tents. Another separate washroom facility similar to the first, is under construction at the front of the Children's Home, to be used by the orphans. Competitions have begun to win the right to the first shower!
The fourth container of relief supplies was filled today at the Abbotsford warehouse - filled to capacity with a variety of food and a few construction supplies. It will leave tomorrow and arrive in Port-au-Prince in 34 days. Vineyard church plans to take a mision team to Haiti to meet the container when it arrrives and help coordinate the distribution of the food. By working with Pastor Luc's network of colleagues, the food gets through to some of the more remote, poorest areas in Haiti. We have enough food left in our warehouse to fill at least three more containers.
March 25, 2010
In case you haven't already, please check out Rebecca's blog for near-daily updates on what is happening at Heart to Heart in Haiti (www.rebeccalarkin.blogspot.com). The first container of flour cleared customs and arrived in our compound earlier this week. Rebecca has pictures and more information on that good news. We have two more containers of oats in the DR right now. We are waiting for the contents to be bagged into family-sized portions and expect to be able to distribute the product shortly.
Our warehouses in Abbotsford and Cloverdale are still collecting food and rice to ship to Haiti. Although the pace has slowed considerably since the earthquake, goods are still arriving. We've recently received rice from schools in the Salmon Arm area and a generous donation from Rainbow Creek Elementary school in Alberta. Pacific Community Church (PCC) currently has 235 buckets filled with food and 1260 lbs. of rice ready for shipment to Haiti. PCC also received a U-Haul truck full of crutches, canes and walker casts that were dropped off by a young man from Richmond. He put ads in the paper and made flyers shortly after the earthquake because he felt called to ask for crutches. He didn't know how he was going to get them to Haiti, he just knew he had to start collecting them. Then he saw our chairman in a press conference on TV and got in touch with us.
Below is a link to a newspaper article in the Tricity News of a high school class making dresses for kids at H2H, or wherever the greatest need is.
http://www.bclocalnews.com/tri_city_maple_ridge/tricitynews/community/88856167.html
Repairs to the Children's Home are starting next week. Thankfully, there was no significant structural damage to our Home - we were, however, left with many cracks in the plaster which has lead to water leaking in when it rains. The washrooms on the second floor of the Children's Home should be installed and ready to use within the next couple of weeks. We are also beginning the construction of a stand-alone set of washrooms for the orphans in the Children's Home.
Almost all of the rubble from the top floor of our school has been removed. The construction crew is now building scaffolds to remove the remainder of the roof, which is a big job. To accommodate all the studetns with half the available classes, we are considering two start times (morning and afternoon). We have decided to rebuild our kitchen/dining room facility in a new location, closer to the school, which will make it much more convenient to serve both the kids in the Children's Home as well as the kids from the community at our school. Since this location is near our school, we cannot begin construction until the demolition of the roof is finished.
In case you haven't already, please check out Rebecca's blog for near-daily updates on what is happening at Heart to Heart in Haiti (www.rebeccalarkin.blogspot.com). The first container of flour cleared customs and arrived in our compound earlier this week. Rebecca has pictures and more information on that good news. We have two more containers of oats in the DR right now. We are waiting for the contents to be bagged into family-sized portions and expect to be able to distribute the product shortly.
Our warehouses in Abbotsford and Cloverdale are still collecting food and rice to ship to Haiti. Although the pace has slowed considerably since the earthquake, goods are still arriving. We've recently received rice from schools in the Salmon Arm area and a generous donation from Rainbow Creek Elementary school in Alberta. Pacific Community Church (PCC) currently has 235 buckets filled with food and 1260 lbs. of rice ready for shipment to Haiti. PCC also received a U-Haul truck full of crutches, canes and walker casts that were dropped off by a young man from Richmond. He put ads in the paper and made flyers shortly after the earthquake because he felt called to ask for crutches. He didn't know how he was going to get them to Haiti, he just knew he had to start collecting them. Then he saw our chairman in a press conference on TV and got in touch with us.
Below is a link to a newspaper article in the Tricity News of a high school class making dresses for kids at H2H, or wherever the greatest need is.
http://www.bclocalnews.com/tri_city_maple_ridge/tricitynews/community/88856167.html
Repairs to the Children's Home are starting next week. Thankfully, there was no significant structural damage to our Home - we were, however, left with many cracks in the plaster which has lead to water leaking in when it rains. The washrooms on the second floor of the Children's Home should be installed and ready to use within the next couple of weeks. We are also beginning the construction of a stand-alone set of washrooms for the orphans in the Children's Home.
Almost all of the rubble from the top floor of our school has been removed. The construction crew is now building scaffolds to remove the remainder of the roof, which is a big job. To accommodate all the studetns with half the available classes, we are considering two start times (morning and afternoon). We have decided to rebuild our kitchen/dining room facility in a new location, closer to the school, which will make it much more convenient to serve both the kids in the Children's Home as well as the kids from the community at our school. Since this location is near our school, we cannot begin construction until the demolition of the roof is finished.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
