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.