Peggy Revell
Two Fort Frances women will be heading to Haiti next week to assist with relief efforts following the devastating earthquake that struck the Caribbean nation back in January.
“We’re going to do what we can,” said Pastor Sandy McEvoy, who will be leaving April 6 for a 10-day visit to help distribute medical aid and relief supplies through the “Helping Hands Incorporated” organization.
For Pastor McEvoy, who currently is assisting at the Lindford Fellowship Church in Littlefork, Mn., the call to travel to Haiti came while watching the news coverage following the quake.
“I was watching the part where they showed the nursing home that had been destroyed and all these people sitting out in the open without food, without clothing,” she remarked.
“I just felt in my heart I need to go to Haiti and help.”
She said the opportunity to actually go came about from speaking to a friend and fellow pastor in Florida, who already was planning to visit Haiti with the “Helping Hands” organization.
“We’re not expecting to see a whole lot of good,” Pastor McEvoy admitted. “I know there’s going to be a lot of heartbreak and sadness still, people still living without homes, people still live without being treated [for injuries] and such.”
“Last year when I was there, the people had nothing, so now they really have nothing,” said local resident Donna Bone, who will be travelling with Pastor McEvoy to Haiti after visiting there last year as a missionary.
“So that’s going to change people. They’ve been through a lot and you add more on top of that,” she noted.
With “Helping Hands,” the local pair will travel to Plaine Colin in the southeast region of Haiti, then visit various locations in that area.
The team they will be going with includes people with a medical backgrounds, Pastor McEvoy noted, so in each area they visit, they will be doing a clinic along with distributing food to people.
The focus of “Helping Hands” is children and they had a school in Haiti, she added, so part of their trip also will be taking care of the children by bringing clothes and school supplies.
“I would like to thank the Kiwanis [Club] for their donation toward helping the children of Haiti, as well as other kind-hearted people that are collecting shampoo, toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap, and things that we take for granted in our country but are badly needed in Haiti,” said Pastor McEvoy, who has been collecting stuffed animals and soft sponge balls to hand out to the children.
“For me, I feel that that’s what I wanted to do because the kids they just have nothing—for little kids, it’s just something to have,” she explained, noting quite a few people already have given her stuffed animals to carry in her suitcase.
“When you go to a child and you give them a little something, their faces light up. It’s rewarding” said Bone. “We brought a lot of stuff last year, and we did bring some little toys, and the kids were just thrilled.
“Actually, they were thrilled with anything you gave them,” she recalled. “We had little toothpaste and toothbrushes, and I was just mobbed.
“Once you start giving away something, people just start coming out of the woodwork because they don’t have anything,” Bone stressed.
The Presbyterian Church in Bergland will be donating a suitcase filled with supplies, Pastor McEvoy noted.
As well, a donation jar has been set up at Suds & Tubs here.
But if people want to help out, the best thing that they can do is donate money, both Bone and McEvoy stressed.
“There’s no direct flight from Fort Frances to Haiti, so it’s costly,” noted Bone, referring to the difficulty of bringing items with them.
Cash donations, on the other hand, mean they then can buy the needed supplies when they get closer and have an idea of what is needed, she reasoned.
“Any money given is guaranteed to go to the people of Haiti,” Pastor McEvoy stressed. “It’s not for administration, it’s not for our plane tickets.
“I’m cleaning houses and washing walls for plane tickets.”
The earthquake has been a way to show the world how badly off the situation is in Haiti, added Bone.
In places like Haiti, even small wounds can be fatal, he said, pointing out how much people take things for granted here.
“If there’s a cut, you put some peroxide on it, you put a Band-Aid on it. If it gets worse, you go to the doctor, you get antibiotics,” Bone remarked.
“There [in Haiti], a cut could be fatal. It’s a whole different world over there.”
During her previous visit to the country, Bone recalled a man who had injured his finger coming up to her group.
The finger had become infected with gangrene, and was swollen and had green puss. And if he didn’t have his arm amputated, he would have died right away, she explained.
“People need their wounds tended to,” she stressed. “People die from wounds, so they need their wounds tended, and they need to be fed and they need to know that somebody cares.
“Food is the big thing,” added Bone of where the aid is needed. “When I went last year, there wasn’t a lot of food.”
During her stay last year, there were two meals a day: about a cup of rice in the morning, and then another cup of rice with maybe some beans in it in the afternoon.
“If you were to go to the garbage dump and take a cardboard box and live in it, that’s what we saw last year,” she explained, referring to the poverty she witnessed in Haiti.
“Right in Port-au-Prince [the capital], there were cement buildings—they were very poorly constructed—but the earthquake made them crumble,” Bone said.
“But the people who were not living in Port-au-Prince, not in the concrete buildings, they just had these little corrugated metal shanties and it was just strewn with garbage all around.
“I thought last year, ‘Could it get any worse?’ So now I wonder what it’s going to be like.
“I just won’t know until I get there,” Bone noted.
Those interested in making donations can contact Pastor McEvoy (274-1242) or Bone (274-2212).
