Over the last two months, the church school has been transformed from a dirt floor to a cement floor. All the walls have been rebuilt and a new roof is in place. Translucent roof panels of red, green and yellow make the space cheerful for students and Sunday worshippers alike. This project was a joint effort between Help for Haiti and all the volunteers and workers from the church. It was amazing to watch teenage girls carry 5 gallon buckets of sand on their head up a steep hill so the sand could be mixed with cement to repair the walls. Kids as young as 6 years old hauled metal rebar up the hill, all the while smiling from ear to ear. Schoolteachers and parents would stack two or three cement blocks on their heads to move the blocks from the road below to where the masons were working. Eight tradesmen worked for two months earning $3200 in wages; carpenters, masons and laborers hired locally to do the work.

With the work complete, on September 13^th we arrived at the school with the backpacks for the kids. Each backpack contained a toothbrush, toothpaste, decorated spiral bound notebook, pencils, a beanie baby, toy car for boys or hair ribbons for girls. The bags were customized with the Marmalade student’s name at Bethany Church’s summer family camp. Bethany kids know the name of the Marmalade student who got the backpack they personally decorated and filled. The cost of each backpack, including the shipping and supplies, was about $16.50 and was paid for by the kids at Bethany and a special collection they did along with Help for Haiti donors. Thank you, donors.

Funds for school benches were my request in my last blog and we received funds for over 20 benches that are being made by a local carpenter and will be there for opening day of school. Please go to our web site www.helpforhaiti.com and click Photo Gallery for pictures of the kids and the church school construction.

A New Truck in Haiti

After paying $160 per day for rental cars all year for a total of over $3500 in rental charges I personally paid, I am putting out a request for donations to buy a vehicle in Haiti. We have two men working for us there and we will begin delivering food each month to the kids in Marmalade. There is a storage place being built at the school to store a month’s worth and the rest is being stored free of charge at an orphanage where we will share some of the 107,000 meals on the way to them. I am planning on buying a small Ford Ranger truck. In Haiti they sell a four cylinder diesel king cab for $25,800 to recognized Haiti charities. Ford has them made for third world markets and they are a 4 wheel drive king cab with a manual transmission. I would put a cap on the back to keep rain off the cargo area. Marcot Vernois and Jean Nelson Denis, who work for us, would be responsible for the truck and it will be registered in the name of Help for Haiti in Haiti. We have almost completed the application to the Haitian government to be a recognized charity there. With our documentation complete, we will save thousands of dollars over the price of the truck without recognition in Haiti.

Thanking God daily for each one of you.

Jim Willey

Amazing progress is being made to complete our reconstruction of the Marmalade Church before the kids return to school in September. The whole local church turned out to help when the construction materials arrived on July 12^th.

One thousand cement blocks, two hundred bags of cement, a hundred twelve foot metal roof panels all arrived in two large trucks and the Marmalade Church people moved all the materials up a hill to the construction site. Kids, some as young as six years old, walked up and down the 100-foot hill to get all the materials to the site. It was amazing to see teenage girls with five gallon buckets full of sand balanced on their heads and chatting away as they walked up the hill in flip flops to empty the bucket and head back down the hill for more. Pastor Villience, his whole family and other church members were working together as this long awaited project got underway. The excitement of the teachers was wonderful to see as they too carried materials up this hill to stage the work. Go to the photo section of our web site to see lots of pictures.

Help for Haiti bought over $12,000 of building materials and paid eight local tradesmen, carpenters and cement masons $3100 to do the work. The lead boss on the project is Presume Sipporte and his team consists of 8 local tradesmen. They began working as soon as the supplies arrived and plan on being on the site until the work if finished. Their presence on the site secures the building materials. Their families provide them with food and other necessities during the weeks of work. This work may be their only project for the year and the payroll really helps them support their families. By the time we arrive in September, the church and school will be completely rebuilt.

Bethany Family Camp at Camp Lincoln & Backpacks for 130 Marmalade Students

This was truly a family camp with a purpose as the kids came away from an overnight camping experience with their parents with a real understanding of what it means to have the privilege of being able to go to school when in a place like Haiti many kids never get the chance. The church held a Family Camp this summer and children from Bethany Church packed school supplies in the backpacks.

Each backpack was customized with the name of a Marmalade student and inside was a large colorful paper with the name of the child who packed the backpack with supplies. The Bethany kids wrote a note to each Marmalade student in Haitien Creole as we translated phrases from English to Creole for the Bethany kids to copy. For example, “Jezi remen ou” means, “Jesus loves you” in Creole. Jan Dietrich and Kristen Kephart from Bethany will leave with me on September 11^th to deliver the backpacks to the Marmalade kids.

A Haitian congregation from Bethel Evangelical Church in Somerville, MA joined us at camp and the women from the church cooked wonderful traditional Haitian dishes for the Saturday supper. Pastor Mark Biennestin, the Senior Pastor, spoke Saturday evening and translated Jan’s Sunday message in Creole. Many new friendships began as the families got to know each other when they all worked together to pack the backpacks.

WE NEED YOUR HELP!

The school will open with no real school benches for the kids to sit on. The ones they have from last year are in

terrible condition, and there are not enough of them. There is no place for them to write and they are falling apart. We can have local carpenters build new ones for $75 each. This is the cost of materials and labor. At Bethany Family Camp Dale And Judy Flemming from North Hampton gave me $75 asking that it be used to build the first bench. We need 29 more benches and each one will seat 6 kids. If you can donate to this project it will make a big difference to kids for years to come. Four benches for $300 or ten for $750 –please do what you can and just note on your donatio

n “benches”.

With Thankful Hearts,

Jim & Betsy Willey

FEED

• 107, 000 meals. After almost 700 volunteers showed up on May 21^st to hand pack meals in Portsmouth, NH, we are able to supply a school lunch to 180 kids in Marmalade, Haiti for an entire school year starting this September. Because of you these children will have a nutritious lunch every day at school. Cost with shipping the food to Haiti: $36,000 or less than 34 cents per meal

EDUCATE

• 5 School Teachers, $500 each. Marmalade teachers do not currently make enough to support their families. These stipends from Help for Haiti fill the gap to help meet their basic living expenses. Cost: $2500.

• Building Schools in 2011. We will purchase building supplies on my trip in July 2011 to completely rebuild the Marmalade School. New roof, new cement floor, new doors and repaired walls. Our hope is that he construction will be finished before school starts in September. Cost: $12,310.

EMPLOY

• Salary Assistance. Pastor Pierre Villience founder of the Marmalade School. This stipend helps meet his living and travel expenses. Cost: $1,000.

• Fresh Drinking Water.  We are drilling a well on the Marmalade School site this summer and it will be completed this year. Cost: $3,750.

• Construction Jobs. We believe in hiring local skilled laborers like carpenters and cement masons to build the Marmalade school. The crew will have about 8 men and they will be paid for two months work this summer. These are fair wages for skilled workers in Haiti. Cost: $ 3,125.

• Business Loans. We will shortly commit to our first business loan to an established business in Haiti. This loan will have a payback period of 36 months at a 4% or 5% interest rate. This loan will allow this business to expand to a larger facility. Today this company employs 22 people and with our loan they expect to add many more employees. Cost:  $3000.

• Employment on the Ground. We have two part time employees in Haiti to oversee Help for Haiti projects. Monsieur Marcot Vernois is in charge of administration. His assistant is Monsieur Jean Nelson Denis who helps oversee the construction projects. I hope to make them employees when we can afford to do it.

Because of You

All of this has only been made possible because of your generous donations, your volunteerism at the food pack event, and your tireless time and effort. As of September of 2011, Help for Haiti will have spent almost $70,000 on these very specific projects. We are not quite there yet as you can see from what has come in so far, but I am confident that by September we will have donations to fully cover our current projects.

Little to No Overhead

The overhead expenses to run Help for Haiti are very low. To date we have spent less than $1000 on accounting, legal and marketing, so be encouraged your donated dollars are at work in Haiti. All marketing materials have been created pro bono or from non-donated funds.

God’s Call

We cannot express the way we all felt when 685 people showed up at the Frank Jones Center to pack the food for children. You were the hands and feet that Jesus spoke about when he said, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

Thanks for being there, stay tuned for the next food pack event and send a donation if you can. Together we have just begun to make a difference in Haiti.

Warmest Regards,

Jim & Betsy Willey

Photo Credits: Bobbi Slavin Photography

May 2, 2011, Portsmouth, NH —Local businesses, community members, and church leaders are joining together to pack 100,000 meals on May 21st to be shipped in a container to Haitian children. This event, organized by Help for Haiti, a local non-profit, Bethany Church, and local business leaders, seeks the community’s help for two hour shifts to pack bio-engineered high protein meals into sealed plastic bags for local distribution on the ground in Marmalade and other rural villages.

“It’s been amazing how many people have pulled together to make this happen,” said Mark Rivera, Campus Pastor-Intern of Bethany Church. “Leaders from the business community, Help for Haiti, and church congregants have been meeting since late 2010 with the vision to supply 100,000 meals and now we’re making it happen.”

The team is partnering with Feed My Starving Children, an organization based in Minnesota chartered with eliminating starvation in children throughout the world by helping to instill compassion in people to hear and respond to the cries of those in need. Their approach is grass roots: children and adults hand-pack meals specifically formulated for malnourished children. They have provided “food packing events” and shipped meals to nearly 70 countries around the world.

“After travelling to Haiti for over seven years to help the poor, my wife Betsy and I decided to found Help for Haiti, a Christian non-profit organization based in Rye, New Hampshire,” said Jim Willey, Founder and President for Help for Haiti, and former president of Willey Brothers. “There are children and families starving, the unemployment rate is over 80%, people really need our help. It’s time to pull together and do something. Getting the community together to pack 100, 000 meals on a Saturday is one way you can make a difference.” Jim Willey and Help for Haiti need your help to pay the $ 34,000 cost for the food and to cover the shipping cost for 100,000 meals to the schools in Haiti. Their goal is to provide a lunch for 500 kids each day they are in school who need food to be alert and to learn. To donate, please visit: www.helpforhaiti.org or send your donation to: Help for Haiti, PO Box 103, Rye, NH 03870. Help for Haiti’s promise is that 100% of your donation will go directly to the cost of the food and the shipping cost.

Why does it make sense to help Haiti now?

• Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere
• 40% of Haiti’s 9 million people are under the age of 14 years old
• 23% literacy rate
• 12% children die before the age of 5 years
• 80% children do NOT receive education past 6th grade
• 80% unemployment rate
• Since 1990, Haiti has been hit with 16 Hurricanes, 25 Floods, 7 Droughts, 2 Earthquakes

The community is invited to volunteer and/or donate to help deliver 100,000 meals. All are welcome and encouraged to register on-line for a two hour shift:

Where:

When: Saturday, May 21st

Shifts: 9:00 am | 11:30 am | 2:00 pm

Register: www.helpforhaiti.com/foodpack/

Donate: www.helpforhaiti.org

About Help for Haiti:

Help for Haiti is a Christian 501c3 specifically designed to feed and educate children in the northeast area of Haiti while we build companies and potential jobs for their future. Food and an education are necessary for all children, but a job after an education builds a life. Our promise is that our commitment to Haiti will be matched with a set of strong business controls to assure that the money we spend and invest ends up accomplishing the intended goals:

Feed. Educate. Employ. For more information please contact: http://www.helpforhaiti.com/

April 17th 2011

Haiti Pins Hopes on Pop-Star President

Haiti is the most interesting and eclectic place I have ever been. The title of this blog is the title of an article in the local paper announcing the results of the recent presidential elections in Haiti. The new president is Michael “Sweet Micky” Martelly a 50 year old “compas” entertainer. Compas is a high energy, slowed down version of merengue music. He has no political experience and ran a campaign based on being an outsider. He quotes, “I have a passion to change my country”; and yet he gives few specifics about what kind of change he envisions. He has said he want a free education for all children, but no specifics as to how to pay for it. He is also reported to be pro business. So we will see what the future brings.

May 21st Food Pack Event at the Frank Jones Center in Portsmouth NH

We are in the final stages of launching our first New England food pack event. Bethany Church is leading the event but three other churches have agreed to join us. First Presbyterian Church. In Concord MA, CenterPoint Church in Concord NH and Second Baptist in Sanbornton, NH will each have people attending the pack. We are very excited about what God is doing and hope to far exceed our goal of 100,000 meals. You can volunteer on our web site and we would love to have you join us.

Trips to Haiti

In late February Betsy and I went To Haiti together for a week. On the fourth day she tripped over a rocking chair in our bedroom and broke her arm – very scary time for us. (I left the rocker out from the wall and she tripped over the front rocker) The break looked like a sprain but was in fact a hair line fracture of the wrist. We used ice, compression and ibprofen to keep her comfortable until we got home to have it x-rayed and then put in a cast. My Betsy is one tough little lady and just continued on with the trip without complaint. We attended Sunday service at an orphanage in Cap Haitien, visited a church school in Marmalade and completed all our legal work to become a registered charity in Haiti. In addition, we committed to pay 5 teachers at the Marmalade school $500 per year to supplement the pay the school provides. We also commissioned a project to repair the Marmalade school with a permanent roof, cement floor and repaired walls. I have been working on this project since visiting there the first time in 2006.

I will be returning to Haiti on April 18th for 5 days to review the estimates we have received for the work on the Marmalade church school with the local Haitian contractors. The numbers seem high to me, and while we want to hire locally and put people to work, we also want fair pricing for the project. It is good to be getting to the specifics of this work after so many years. I will also be visiting a tee shirt manufacturer in Cap Haitien that can expand their operation and higher more people. They need a better and lower cost place to manufacture their goods. I will be doing some site visits with them outside of the city.

Here are our prayer requests for all of you:

1.Pray for a great turn out of more than 500 volunteers at our May 21st Food Pack Event.

2.Pray we receive donations to pay the $34,000 for the 100,000 meals we are buying, including the cost to ship them to Cap Haitien.

3.Pray for the church school in Marmalade and the negotiation with the local contractors.

Betsy’s cast is off and she is feeling great and I am thankful I am no longer needed to blow dry her hair. Thank you all for all the support we have had since beginning Help for Haiti last June. Much has been done already because of you – Haiti thanks you and so do we.

Jim & Betsy Willey

Here are four goals for 2011. We want to bring 200,000 packaged nutritious meals to kids in Haiti’s rural Christian schools. We start with a 100,000 meal packing event in the Seacoast area of New Hampshire on Saturday May 21^st. Our first of what we hope will be many Haiti Food Packing Events in New England. Each meal costs 24 cents plus 10 cents to ship it to Haiti. The first event is with Bethany Church in Greenland New Hampshire and they need 500 volunteers so let us know if you can help. Look for more details on this site or go to www.bethanychurch.com for the location, time and sign up information. Help for Haiti is planning on raising $34,000 to FEED kids in Haiti.

We have a goal of paying 20 teachers $500 each in 2011. Each teacher lives on less than $1000 a year. Our stipend keeps them alive to teach the next generation and provides for their families. We need $10,000 to accomplish this goal and EDUCATE kids in Haiti.

We have goal of repairing the church school in Marmalade where 130 kids go to school in a building with a temporary roof, dirt floor and crumbling walls. We need $10,000 to accomplish this goal and EMPLOY Haiti’s carpenters and tradesmen in the process.

We have a goal of making loans to two or three businesses in Cap Haitien Haiti where our low interest loan will allow them to hire more employees. Expanding small businesses are Haiti’s best hope for a better future. We need $20,000 to accomplish this goal and begin to EMPLOY more people.

These four goals will only happen if God wills it and people donate, volunteer and come with us to Haiti to see the need. So please pray, donate, volunteer and come with us on a trip that will change your life forever.

A Look Back!

In 2010 we launched Help for Haiti becoming a charity on June 23^rd. In November we launched our first campaign to raise funds with a commitment to keep our expenses very low and direct donations to specific projects in Haiti. We have raised over $17,000 from 50 donors since November. The donations range from $25 to $2500 and we could not be more pleased with the reaction to Help for Haiti. In October I went to Haiti and we paid 13 teachers $40 each. We paid $500 to a school and orphanage in the Cap Haitien area and we began the process of becoming a recognized charity in Haiti. I met with 10 Christian business owners who need loans to grow their businesses. It is a beginning! Our expenses for 2010 are below 10% of what was donated in 2010. Betsy and I will travel to Haiti on February 9th and we are looking forward to beginning this year’s work. So we thank God for what He has done in 2010 and with a grateful heart look forward to what He will do in 2011.

Jim & Betsy Willey

First to check on the progress of a building effort of a church school in Marmalade about 3 hours drive from Cap Haitien. Help for Haiti donors had given $500 to buy cement to begin repairing the walls of a church school where 130 kids go to school every day. I wanted to see if the work was complete and it was. The picture posted here is of the corner that was rebuilt with the cement and blocks donated and sent in April. It was good to see that the work had been completed. I estimate an additional $10,000 will be needed to put this school in good order by Haiti standards. Someday I hope we will build only earthquake proof buildings, but today these kids need a building with a cement floor, strong walls, and a good tin roof.

Second, we carried with us 50 hand knitted dolls made by Mary Tohill who lives in Hampton, NH. Mary is affectionately called “Mary Sunshine” because of the love she shares through the dolls she knits. She makes a couple every day and donates them to school kids and she made 50 with black faces just for the girls at Bon Secours Orphanage in Madelaine, just outside Cap Haitien. The girls were beaming with the first gift they ever received that was just for them. Go to the photo section on our web site and view the pictures. We bought little cars and trucks for the boys too.

Third, we needed to pay some teachers and leaders. It has been a practice of mine for some time to visit the schools and personally meet the teachers and then give them a payroll stipend. Help for Haiti paid 13 teachers $40 each and each of them signed for the money. It isn’t much and needs to be a lot more, but $40 is a month’s pay for a rural teacher. We also provided some money for the leadership of these schools; the total was $220 for 4 leaders. The total of $740 to 17 educators is a part of our vision to educate children in rural Haiti.

Fourth, we met with a group of 8 to 10 local Christian business owners who recently formed an association called “Christian Entrepreneurs In Action”. This group of business owners employ about 120 people and each of the companies want to grow. We hosted Partners World Wide and Christian Entrepreneurs In Action for a very interesting evening. Together I believe we may be able to create lots of new employment opportunities in the Cap Haitien area next year.

In addition to the efforts above we did a lot of running around between the mayor of Cap Haitien’s office, the office of the local Senator, the Custom’s office, and the port dock where a container of food had been held for over 6 months, for a variety of reasons. Paperwork was incomplete, storage charges on the dock were unpaid, and the US Non Governmental Agency that shipped it had given up on getting it released. They asked me to try and get it released while I was in Haiti. Too long a story for here, but the food is now ready to be released to a charity in Haiti and should be given to them shortly. This is almost $10,000 in prepackaged meals for Christian schools and orphanages, much like the ones we serve. I believe it is important that we cooperate and help other charities in Haiti who are working to feed children just as we are. The needs are tremendous.

This is it for today. I want to leave you all with an open invitation to come with me on a trip to Haiti. It will change you forever and you will be amazed at the courage and resilience of these wonderful and beautiful people.

May God bless your day.

Jim

Meet Mary Sunshine!

Mary Toohil, also known as Mary Sunshine, loves to hand knit dolls and today, just a couple hours ago in fact, her friend Linda Jozitis delivered to Betsy and me in Rye, NH 50 beautiful hand knit dolls for me to take to kids in Haiti. Linda brought me the pictures of Mary too.

Well, Mary stopped me dead in my tracks with her Comfort Dolls for orphans in Haiti. So I am sitting here with one of Mary’s dolls in my lap and feeling pretty comfortable myself.  Whatever else this day brings it won’t top Mary’s gift. Here’s the thing. Mary is 80 years old with a smile to melt any heart, spends her days knitting dolls for lots of needy kids.  In an Atlantic News article I just read about Mary, it was reported, “I just keep knitting, It keeps me busy and out of trouble” I haven’t met Mary but somehow she heard about Help for Haiti and that we were headed to Haiti. She has been working for about a month and today she delivered 50 gorgeous dolls for Jack Bickel and me to deliver to the kids at an orphanage we will visit in Cap Haitian next week.

Blogging is a piece of cake when there are Mary’s in this world. For those 50 kids, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you Mary! May God richly bless your day and I promise we will bring you back lots of pictures.

Jim Willey