“We make a living by what we get; but we make a life by what we give.”
— Winston Churchill
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WREX, Rockford, IL
Second graders at Lathrop Elementary School, Rockford, IL donate "Quarters for the Quake".
Photo by Michael Erb
Vocalist Tyler Siers, center, solicits donations from Parkersburg, WV High School students as classmates Wyatt Allen, center right, and Colten Drake, right, perform during lunch at the school. The seniors and the PHS French Club have raised money to donate to Haiti relief efforts. Schools throughout the valley have begun or are planning fundraising events for the people of Haiti.
Haiti Tragedy Hitting Close To Home For Bostonians
Even if they knew little about Haiti before the earthquake, Bostonians want to help their newfound neighbors there
- By Joseph P. Kahn, Boston Globe Staff
- February 16, 2010
The media has done its job really well this time. Let's face it: Many people didn't even know where Haiti was.
People from all across the USA have been moved to help in Haiti relief efforts. Here's a story about Bostonians, along with photos and video from elsewhere, and how individuals decided to get busy helping others.
Ten days after a massive earthquake struck Haiti, Jillian Matarazzo-Rabson met with her 32-member Girl Scout troop in Charlestown. Matarazzo-Rabson was moved by the unfolding tragedy, and the Girl Scouts of America board had lifted its ban on troops raising money for outside organizations. Profits from cookie sales could now go to Haiti relief efforts. Direct solicitations were being allowed, too, a rare policy change for the national scouting organization.
Matarazzo-Rabson's troop had been following news reports from Haiti, a country they knew little about, and commenting on how the children suffering there could be their own brothers and sisters. Fellow scouts, even.
"We talked about the people who are helping out, doctors and military, and what their specialties are,'' Matarazzo-Rabson says. " ‘What's your specialty?' I asked them. ‘Selling cookies.' So that's what we decided to do.''
There have been disasters, and there have been responses. The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami comes to mind. But it's hard to recall a disaster at any time in history that not only touched so many but also inspired them to act, and to act so quickly. Before Jan. 12, many Americans had knowledge of, or interest in, the Caribbean nation. Then an estimated 200,000 - the total continues to climb as more casualties are tallied - died in an earthquake. Even now, a month after the catastrophe, local schools are responding with fund-raising bake sales and jeans days. Businesses are urging employees to contribute. Churches and synagogues, arts organizations, and health clubs have enjoined their members to give, and continue to do so.
Haiti's proximity to the United States, its long history of poverty and oppression, America's role in perpetuating these adversities, and the large Haitian-American presence in some big US cities such as Boston have all been cited as reasons for the outpouring. But above all, it's been the pictures and stories pouring out of the country - and then spread rapidly and widely by social network sites such as Twitter and Facebook - that seem to have most inspired people to donate.
And donate they have. According to mgive.com, a website tracking mobile texting donations to Haiti, Massachusetts ranks ninth among all the states (Rhode Island and Connecticut are also in the top 10) in percentage of residents donating. Total donations to date: nearly $850,000.
"The media has done its job really well this time,'' says Banafsheh Ehtemam, head of Boston Photography Center, whose organization held a silent auction that raised $3,000 for Doctors Without Borders. "Let's face it: Many people didn't even know where Haiti was. We'd see Boston cab drivers from Haiti and not know who they were or where they came from.''
Katherine Kominis donated three works to the BPC auction and made a personal pledge to Doctors Without Borders as well. An assistant director for Boston University's Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Kominis says tragedies like Hurricane Katrina and the 2004 tsunami have caused an "incremental response'' in her thinking about responding to natural disasters. When Haiti was dealt a devastating blow, she says, it felt as if our own neighbors were in peril. And while she's never been there, "I was thrilled to see a BU team down there working on the rebuilding effort,'' Kominis says.
Boston developer John Rosenthal, long active in causes such as anti-handgun violence and urban homelessness, responded viscerally to the earthquake, writing a $1,000 check to Partners in Health, a Boston-based agency that provides health care in Haiti and other impoverished nations, immediately as the news came out. He did not stop there, though. Rosenthal sent e-mails to 500 of his friends and business colleagues, urging them to step up too. Never has he gotten such a positive response, says Rosenthal, who like many local donors has never set foot in Haiti and had no direct connection to the country.
"A big part of what's moved me is the randomness,'' Rosenthal says. "These people did nothing to deserve becoming victims. Yet the resiliency and determination we've seen from them - what a gift Haiti has been giving the rest of the world.''
Mark Harrington, CEO of HealthWorks Fitness Centers for Women, a Boston-area health club chain, got Rosenthal's e-mail and quickly organized a matching-fund drive for his club members. HealthWorks has already collected more than $78,000 it's sending for Partners in Health.
Like ripples in a pond, the impulse to give has steadily spread outward. Amanda Fencl, a member of HealthWorks in Cambridge, got Harrington's e-mail and pledged $100, knowing her gift would be doubled. "For me, giving to help Haiti was a no-brainer,'' says Fencl, who works for a nonprofit environmental institute. "Health club memberships aren't cheap, anyway. If I'm willing to spend that much on a gym, I figure I can give to help others, too.''
At the Shawsheen Valley Regional Technical School in Billerica, 11th-graders were already looking for a community service project to support when the earthquake struck. On what was designated Bring a Buck Day, students wore red and blue (Haiti's national colors) to school in a drive that raised more than $2,000 for the American Red Cross.
One of the student leaders, junior Allyson Trayah, 17, of Tewksbury, says she knew little about Haiti before the earthquake. Like her classmates, though, she was struck by the sheer number of survivors left without food, shelter, or water. When the 11th-grade committee met to consider worthy projects, there wasn't much debate.
"We took a vote,'' Trayah says, "and it was unanimous: Haiti.''
The feelings were similar for Matarazzo-Rabson's Girl Scout troop, whose members deployed themselves outside a Charlestown supermarket one chilly Thursday afternoon. Troop members spent two hours selling Thin Mints and rattling donation cups for Doctors Without Borders, one of the chief international medical agencies working in Haiti. They raised $436.
© 2010 NY Times Co.