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While the Caribbean hurricanes have subsided, the devastation in Haiti
is widespread and recovery is slow, painful and expensive. Our Friends
at Hands Together have been particularly hard hit. The report from
Father Tom and Doug describes the destruction and Hands Together's
plans to rebuild.
Hurricane Response Plan
Father Tom Hagan, Doug Campbell,
and Joe Taylor drove to Gonaives, Haiti on September 15 to assess
firsthand the devastation caused by hurricanes Hannah and Ike, and to
work with Fr. Gerard on an immediate response/recovery plan.
What We found
Driving to Gonaives proved almost impossible.
With the bridge at Montrious (near St. Marc) washed out and under
repair, we forded the river in two Toyota land cruisers stocked with
clothing, medicine, sheets and blankets.
The only road open to Gonaives skirts to the west of Route National
(which was completely flooded under 6 to 10 feet of water), and through
the villages of Guimby and Brunette. It saddened us to witness the
destruction of the goat farms and crops that we worked so hard to
cultivate.
But the most devastating and disturbing area is the city of Gonaives
itself. We witnessed people slogging through mud and water, streets
filled with filthy, contaminated water and mud, thousands of families
living on top of two and three story homes, vehicles buried in mud,
dead animals and utter destruction. Only a handful of vehicles moved
about – in a city that is usually jammed with traffic. People lack
fresh water, and food is scarce. All of the schools are closed and
thousands of homes are filled with foul mud and unclean water. Mothers
carrying sick children walked around in a daze, waist deep in filthy
water contaminated with garbage, sewage and decaying animals.
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The Hands Together office in Gonaives suffered serious destruction
from both Hannah and Ike. Father Gerard described the Sunday night
terror when the rains pounded for 24 hours straight, and the vehicles
and construction equipment at our complex were, as he put it, "dancing
in the water." In the neighborhood Fr. Gerard heard many families
crying out for help during the night, and he put many of them on our
second floor and roof area. The Sisters in Trou Sable called him in the
middle of the night and he asked them if they wanted him to drive over
and help them, and they replied, "Father! There is no way you will be
able to leave the second floor of your office!"
Response Plan
We drove back to Port-au-Prince with Fr. Gerard
and created an immediate response plan to help those hardest hit by
these hurricanes and to resurrect the Hands Together's Gonaives office
and projects.
Repair Vehicles and Office Buildings
We cannot help many people until we establish a secure base and make our construction equipment and vehicles operational.
Food
We will organize neighborhood food distribution in areas
where we can safely provide rice, beans, and oil. We will distribute
food to 9,000 families for 30 days.
Clean up and Work
People desperately need help removing
water, mud and garbage from their homes, and schools and businesses.
Following a model we developed during the 2004 Jeanne hurricane, we
will organize students into work teams to clean areas, street by
street, and pay them tuition money after 15 days of work. The student
teams will remove mud from houses and treat them with antibacterial
solution. They will also repair the roads to the agricultural center
and the office in Chatelaine.
Water
We will provide fresh drinking water to many
neighborhoods by filling our commercial water truck from our water
wells near the Bassen road, and we will hand out 350, five gallon
buckets that can be filled with drinking water from our truck. Our
water truck will circulate four days per week in Gonaives and three
days per week in Port-au-Prince. The water truck will also hose down
streets and houses after cleanup efforts.
Health and Medical
We will convert several classrooms in the Holy Family School in Trou Sable to serve as emergency medical treatment areas.
Home Repair and Construction
Thousands of homes need repair
or new construction and we realize that we cannot make much of a dent
in this problem. However, there are many people that work for our
projects or live in areas where Hands Together plays a very active role, that need
our help. We will provide funds, $500 grants, and materials to restore
and repair 100 family homes.
The effort and expense to execute this plan is immense. Hands
Together estimates that this program will cost over $220,000 to
execute. If you would like information on how you can help, please
contact Karl Holtsnider at Holy Family at (626) 403-6139 or
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Please keep Father Tom, Hands Together and the people of Haiti in your payers.
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Dear Friends of Hands Together,
On September 2, 2008, I received the last possible email (before the
electricity went out) from our headquarters in Gonaives. Father Gerard
Dormevil who runs our programs outside of Port-au-Prince wrote to tell
me that "Tropical storm Hannah has put us in the same situation that
came with hurricane Jeanne in 2004 - the entire first floor of the
office complex is under water - we are looking to see what we can do to
cope. I will call you tomorrow. - Gerard"
On the same day Father Tom wrote me from Port-au-Prince, "Doug . . .
It is 5:00 p.m. and we have not been able to get contact with Gerard.
What is being told to us is that it is worse than the other one that
killed 3,000 . . . helicopters can't even land . . ."
On September 3rd, Tom spoke with our staff up in Gonaives and
learned that "Gerard is on the top floor of our office and really can't
get out without a boat. Water has covered most of Gonaives. The
Missionary Sisters of Charity tell me that people have died at their
place. I also understand that no vehicles can reach Gonaives.
I have been in telephone contact with Father Gerard since September
2nd and can tell you that Gonaives and the surrounding villages are
under 6-10 feet of water. 150,000 have been displaced, almost no
vehicles can operate and there is very little access to drinking water,
food, shelter and basic human needs. There is no way to reach the city
by vehicle because the roads from St. Marc to Gonaives are flooded out.
Response: On September 5th, Veral of our Gonaives staff
made it to our center using a back road via Hinche and Mirebalais and
down into Port-au-Prince. We purchased drums and filled them with fuel
and water, and gave them food to bring back to our folks in Gonaives.
Thankfully, our large dump truck and back hoe loader was in
Port-au-Prince and not in Gonaives where we keep it most of the time.
They brought these vehicles back to Gonaives and now Gerard is busy
coordinating relief efforts from the Bassen Center where there is water
and food.
I planned on driving to Gonaives on Monday, September 8, but we
learned that the bridge in Mirebalais collapsed, making the drive
impossible.
Now IKE is dousing Gonaives with more rain, (and also Cite Soleil) and making it impossible to drive up there at this time.
Our plan is to drive to Gonaives on September 15 with a caravan of
vehicles, our water truck filled with 2,000 gallons of drinking water,
our other vehicles filled with food and medicine and household needs,
some portable generators for power. We will work with Gerard to
coordinate outreach efforts. We can fill the water truck from our
cisterns in Bassen and make trips back and forth to the city to deliver
life-saving water.
We ask for your prayers and we hope that God will give us the strength to help so many recover from such destruction.
God bless,
Doug Campbell
Hands Together
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A Holy Family video team traveled to Haiti in December, 2007. What follows is a journal of their experiences as they document the marvelous work of Fr. Tom Hagan in Haiti.
Fr. Tom's Haiti
We arrived at Holy Family Church at 6:00 p.m. on Friday, November 30. Four strong, we were on our way to videotape a documentary about the work of Fr. Tom Hagan, founder of Hands Together, better known at Holy Family as Mission Haiti. We knew that it was going to be an exciting venture, but we also knew that it would be a major challenge to capture the spirit of Hands Together in one short week of videotaping.
After flying all night, we arrived in Port-au-Prince at 9:00 a.m. the next morning. By 11:00 a.m., we were in the middle of Cite Soleil experiencing and videotaping the reality of the worst slum in the western hemisphere. We walk by the tin shacks through a sea of garbage, fearing that the a rusty nail or sharp piece of metal might pierce our thin sneakers. Then we saw the children, shoeless and often naked, running through the trash as if it were our beautiful artificial turf. We knew instantly that one had to be tough to exist in this frightening world, but our tentative, "Bon Jour!" always brought forth a welcoming return "Bon Jour!" and a huge smile. We were with Fr. Tom and that meant we were family.
In the slums of Cite Soleil, Fr. Tom is Pere Tom. Pere is French for Father. No one is more respected in Cite Soleil than Pere Tom. The children flock to him. The adults revere him. The needy besiege him. We felt safe walking in this forsaken but violent land because we walked with Pere Tom. Anyone who walked with Pere Tom must be a friend of the poor.
There was, of course, in Cite Soleil no running water, no electricity, no sewers, no trash disposal. The stench from the rotting garbage and sewer slime was overwhelming. We knew we were in the world of Pere Tom.
We asked the children if they go to school. They proudly pointed to a compound, completely surrounded by the slum. "This is our school! Pere Tom gave us this school." Since it was Saturday the children were not in school. But in this desolate waste, we saw the first glimmer of hope.
We chanced upon one of the shacks being built. A skeleton structure of branches, only one to two inches thick, formed the framework of the shack. The home-to-be was approximately twelve by twelve feet square, very typical of the thousands of homes that we saw surrounding us. The builder was nailing random pieces of corrugated and rusty tin to this meager framework. We marveled that he could find enough wood to hold the nails, but in the short time we were there, most of the "home" was finished and another family had at least a modicum of privacy.
Right in the middle of the slums, Pere Tom showed us another Hands Together venture, model homes to replace the tin shacks. Since Cite Soleil is situated at the mouth of a river emptying into the ocean, the slum is subject to flooding from heavy mountain downpours or tropical storms that bring a surging sea. So Pere Tom and his workers build the model homes on foundations approximately two feet high. The frameworks of the two room homes are solid 4x4s, or 2x6s with sturdy doors, tin roofs, and plastered exterior/interior walls.
The Hands Together houses are given to the poorest of the slum dwellers, often the elderly. To date, Hands Together has built 165 houses, a tiny fraction of the houses needed in this slum of one half million people. But Hands Together is modeling what needs to be done in the hope that the government or some other major agency will step forward to build the number of homes needed to transform this slum into a livable neighborhood.
Day 2 of Videotaping
Our second day in Haiti was a Sunday. At the only church in the slum of Cite Soleil, Fr. Tom celebrated Eucharist for hundreds of children and their families. The church itself is not distinctive - merely a large concrete block structure with corrugated iron sheeting for a roof. What is distinctive is that the roof is pierced by rows of bullet holes, reminding everyone of the more violent days in the past when the UN gunships targeted the gangs in Cite Soleil. But today, the community gathered in a joyful and peaceful celebration.
When we entered the church, we couldn't help but notice the paintings on the wall behind the altar. In vivid detail the upper painting depicted a bloody Christ hanging on the cross. Christ's body was that of a black person. Below the crucifixion scene was a painting similar to Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper, only the disciples were black people. Fr. Tom explained why these paintings are so special to him and the people of the slum. All the artwork was created by gang members whom Fr. Tom has rescued from the gangs and given a new life. Like true artists, they took great pride in their work.
From the church, we moved to a section of Cite Soleil where once there were rows of two story houses. During the height of the violence the houses were shelled and now only remnants remain. Squatters occupy what is left. The ruins of these houses stand in stark contrast to a series of houses which Hands Together has constructed literally across the street from the ruins. Fr. Tom calls them his housing project. Built on foundations that are at least two feet high to escape the floods of Cite Soleil, the houses are simple enough, but eminently functional. Each has at least two rooms, and each is freely given by lottery to one of the poorest families in the community. There is, of course, no running water or electricity, but to these poor people, one of Fr. Tom's houses is heaven on earth!
Fr. Tom cannot afford to build very many of these houses. So far, he has constructed 165. Each costs from $2,000 to $3,000 U.S. dollars. Fr. Tom is pointing the way for some major institution or world charity, much better funded than Hands Together, to move in and construct thousands of such houses to clean up Cite Soleil. Let us pray that such will be the case sometime in the not too distant future.
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The Dolores Mission/Holy Family Connection
For several years, Holy Family parishioners have enjoyed a special and unique
relationship with Dolores Mission — a Jesuit parish in the Boyle Heights
section of East Los Angeles. The proximity to South Pasadena enables
the Holy Family community to be in a relationship of solidarity — a friendship
among people who share a common faith and a desire for deeper understanding and
cultural enrichment.
Our Time and Talent at Dolores Mission
Holy Family's involvement with the people of Dolores Mission includes Bridges,
a friendship building program between the children of Holy Family and Dolores
Mission schools. Holy Family parishioners serve on the Dolores Mission School
Advisory Board which recently oversaw a major school renovation project. Other
parishioners serve on the Dolores Mission parish finance and development
advisory committee. Our parishioners are also active in teaching English and
visiting with the men of the Guadalupe Homeless Project housed on Dolores Mission's
grounds. Other Holy Family parishioners can be found working in the organic
garden created for the children of Dolores Mission, teaching poetry and writing
to the school children, and tutoring in the after-school program. Most
recently, a group of retired educators has undertaken a remediation program
for the children of Dolores
Mission School.
Each January, many Holy Family parishioners participate in an annual party
which raises funds for the various needs of Dolores Mission Parish and School.
Volunteer Opportunities
Opportunities exist for retired educators, tutors and other
interested groups or individuals who would like to share their time or talent.
- Mentor and tutor Dolores Mission
School children
- Mentor
and tutor high school students of Dolores Mission Parish
- Prepare meals for Guadalupe Homeless Project
Contact
To volunteer at Dolores Mission School:
Diane Sternal
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To volunteer to assist high school students:
Jane Argento
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To volunteer at the Guadalupe Homeless Project:
Jay Madden
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Latest News:
A video
piece
from the Holy Family Giving Bank is posted on the blog:
http://blog.feedingamerica.org/2010/04/south-pasedena%e2%80%99s-holy-family-giving-bank/
Mission Statement
Holy
Family Church’s
Giving Bank takes seriously our baptismal call to be responsible, respectful
stewards of one another. Recognizing that God works in and through the world,
and in each one of us, the Giving Bank provides direct relief to those in the
local Los Angeles
area who face food insecurity and hunger. Our action is implemented in a welcoming spirit of Christian love for one
another, recognizing that all involved are assembled as God’s community.
About the Giving Bank
The Giving Bank assists in fulfilling the mission of Holy Family
Church by “reaching out
to those in need.” It recognizes that our brothers and sisters requiring
assistance are not just the people with whom we celebrate the Sunday liturgy. They are the people outside of our local parish boundaries – the people who are struggling
economically or those who may, indeed, be devoid of all resources and
homeless.
The year 2009 marks the 31st year of the Giving Bank. It
began on a small scale in 1978 and has grown into one of the largest Catholic
providers of supplemental food in the San
Gabriel region. The Giving Bank, located at the St. Joseph Center, provides food to an
average of 220 families each week – roughly 750 persons. It attempts to
distribute a balanced diet of protein, fruits, vegetables and carbohydrates,
keeping in mind the necessary requirements of school-age children and senior
adults. Periodic workshops focusing on nutrition and other issues are also
offered.
The Giving Bank does not stop at Monday distribution. There
is also a lunch program from 12:00 p.m.-2:00 p.m., providing a pre-packaged
lunch to persons who are homeless or living on a low income. This program serves an
estimated 100-120 persons weekly. These persons are greeted at the door – often
by name – and given personal attention.
Monday mornings are a fun combination of preparation,
volunteers running to and fro, and fond communication among all involved.
Rather than just a simple distribution, the clients are treated with respect
and dignity. Many come much earlier than the 9:00 a.m. start, to socialize with
friends, so often the Giving Bank resembles more a community than a “social
service.” Holidays are an especially festive time, with as many as 420 families
appearing for Thanksgiving distribution and an estimated 300 families for
Christmas food and toys.
The volunteers in this ministry are very dedicated to the
work of the church. It is truly a faith community. There are ongoing formation
sessions focusing on reflection of the social gospel and prayer. These kind
people are also subject to the Archdiocesan policy guidelines of “Safeguard the
Children” which requires that all church volunteers working with children
attend a VIRTUS training program and be fingerprinted when necessary.
A Giving Bank committee, formed in early 2006, advises on
best practices of acquiring donations and other essential items. It is headed
by Fred Seymour, former chair of the Outreach Commission.
Items Needed
-
Pasta
- Canned or powdered milk
- Cereal
- Canned soup
- Canned tuna
- Canned vegetables
- Dried fruit
- Nuts
You can place your bags in our bins under the counter at each church entrance OR bring them to us at the St. Joseph Center, Tuesday - Friday from 8:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. Remember to press the black buzzer so we know you're there!
Volunteer Ministry Opportunity
There are many ways to help at the Giving Bank. We invite
you to become part of this fun, faith-filled group of volunteers.
Calendar
-
Food Bagging, Sundays 9:00 a.m. – 10:30 a.m., St. Joseph Center
- Food Distribution, Mondays 9:00 a.m. – 10:45 a.m., St. Joseph Center
Contact
The Giving Bank
St. Joseph Center
1524 Fremont Ave.
South Pasadena, CA 91030
(626) 403-6140
Carrie-Ann Lue Sue
Director of Community Services
(626) 403-6141
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Give us a call – we’d love to hear from you!
Resources
The Giving Bank is one agency responding to persons who face
food insecurity in the Los Angeles
area. There are many organizations involved in this endeavor. Here is a sample
of some of the agencies with which the Giving Bank networks:
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