HAITI EARTHQUAKE RELIEF FUND
Last month was very busy with Friar Suppliers and our Earthquake relief. Your donations were beyond belief. The Little Brothers were able to feed over 300 people. We gave 750 people enough tin to replace the roof on their houses –the average house needs 14 sheets. We had lots of food clothing and shoes left in my garage. Almost daily my garage was filling up. So many Church Outreaches were loading up vans and bringing me all sorts of canned goods and pasta.
Goya foods had heard about our earthquake relief work and wanted to talk to me. So I went to Fairview New Jersey and they took me out to lunch. I brought them one of our DVDs and we talked about our many many projects. He was impressed by all of what we do and the fact that we had no overhead. After lunch, we went back to the Goya factory and he filled my car with food all Goya products- rice, beans, mixed vegetable, and many other Goya products. He then said to me that he would deliver food to the Croatian Haitian Relief run by Fr Gio. The next week I went back with John McKenna and Joe Cooney with their pickup trucks and we loaded 6 pallets of food onto the trucks. It was so much food!
The night before I spoke with Dave Barrett who is the Troop leader of Troop 1 in Babylon. I told him that I needed help. He said, “Charlie, Don’t worry we will take care of it.” That night the Boy scouts came and in about 90 minutes they unloaded all the trucks and packed the food into barrels. For the next week our shipper TC Shipping. Came and picked up 13 barrels each day. We had packed 85 barrels! Your donation money paid for the shipping! It's actually totally worth the shipping because each barrel costs $160.00 to ship and the food inside the barrel costs us NOTHING but the value of each barrel is at least $1000!
Just last night I was notified that 39 of the 85 barrels have arrived in Haiti with the earthquake relief food. So this Thursday we will be loading our trucks and start delivering the food. I'm hoping that this food handout will go as well as the last one. We are constantly sending recycling food bags to Haiti. Each year I need 2400 for our food handout. I’ve instructed Br. Lozama that he can take as many bags as he needs and put 15-20 pieces of food into the bag to hand out to the poor. So hopefully all of you Friar Suppliers will continue to send me more of these bags!
DO YOU WANT TO GO ON A MISSION TRIP?
October is World Mission Month. Each year in October I start organizing our January Mission Trip. Our dates have finally been set. We will go from January 7 to January 15. Our trips leave from JFK airport in New York. If you want all the details, call me and I can give you the requirements. My phone number is 631-682-4298. We will be having CFR Friars coming on this trip as well. We will be building houses, latrines, doing clothing and shoe handouts, and an evangelization program. We have something for everyone to do. AGE IS NOT AN ISSUE. The youngest age allowed is a high school senior or 17. We even have a GREAT couple that is in their 70’s! All you need is a desire to Love the Lord.
We hire translators so you will have no trouble understanding anyone. We work with the Little Brothers of St.Therese in Haiti. The area we work in is in the North of Haiti. We are nowhere near the area where the earthquake hit. That was in the south. WE are in a very small town called Riviere Friode, Carrefour. It’s very safe there. We stay in the compound of the Little Brothers. Besides hiring translators, we also hire Haitian workers to help get the houses done. We hire 16 Security guards as well to help with the food handout to keep it orderly.
BLIND FAMILIES- OCTOBER 2021
Since 2007 Friar Suppliers have been working with the Blind villagers in Riviere Friode. In the very beginning, we had 10 families living in Riviere Friode that had a Blind member in their family. That year we built each one of those families a house that they could live in. Most of those families still live in those houses we built almost 15 years ago. Through the years The Blind group has grown and grown. Probably because they have heard of our program which helps Blind families. Each Wednesday they come to the Little Brothers and meet as a group and pray the rosary. In the end, we give them a 25lb bag of rice. 2 years ago I decided to change the way the Haitians get their free food. In order to get the food for the month, you MUST send a sighted member of their family to do a day of labor. If you don’t send someone you get NO FOOD FOR THE NEXT 4 WEEKS!
In the beginning, they tried to fool us and tell us they did work. We now have a chart that they have to check in to. The first month we had 4 people not show up but they DEMANDED their food! I have a man named Max Polo that runs the program. If Max says no it means NO. Don’t cry, beg or insist because you are not GETTING THE FOOD!! Our program has grown and currently has 78 people in our program. This program costs Friar Suppliers $3000 per month! We have some very generous families that give to our Blind families each month. In 2017 the Cuban Government opened up a Hospital for the Blind in Port au Prince. It’s a free clinic that anyone can go to. The clinic is always very busy. In the beginning, we would wait
2-3 months just to get an appointment. We brought some of our Blind to Port au Prince but it was an all-day ordeal. We brought 6 Haitians at a time, but it was expensive because we had to pay tap-tap fees- TAXI FEES, buy them lunch and then return home it was an all-day ordeal. Just for that, it cost Friar Suppliers $450.00! But God is so good because, on June 1, 2021, the Cuban government opened another Clinic in Carrefour, 10 minutes from where we work! So we are now going weekly!
I'd now like to report to you the first week that we brought 6 of our Haitian Blind. I'm going to just report on the first 6 people who went to the Clinic. We have brought 28 people to the clinic and have had similar results.
PATIENT #1 First lady had a Cataract in both eyes, which can be removed, and with medicine, she should be able to see
PATIENT #2 Second lady has Glaucoma in one eye and in the other eye she has pterygium. The Pterygium can be removed
PATIENT #3 – Has Pterygium in both of her eyes can be removed in both of her eyes- she will see again!
PATIENT #4 He is 39 years old and has glaucoma in his eye which the Doctor can treat but his other eye is useless!
PATIENT #5 She has pressure coming down from her head into her eyes which is causing the blindness but the Doctor said that this is an easy fix!
PATIENT #6 this woman has squinty eyes so she has trouble seeing. But all she really needs are very strong glasses. They cost $500 which no Haitian could afford so I've told Max to get
her glasses.
The next 3 trips we made all had similar results but not everyone will be able to see. The average is 4 out of 6 will be able to see. This program is very worthwhile. Who would not want to be able to see? So please continue to help our Blind Program or start helping us out! On your check just write BLIND PROGRAM.
- Thanks Charlie Moran
