Showing Our Hope for Haiti

Like many others, I have been devastated by the earthquake in Haiti. My family is an adoptive family, and two of my children, Zoe and Andy, were born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. We were fortunate to meet both of our kids’ birth mothers when we were in Haiti to complete our adoption in 2004. Since then, we have exchanged letters and pictures. Watching the reports and video coming out of Haiti became too stressful because we did not know whether our not our children’s birth families had survived, were injured, or homeless. We decided to do something to help instead of just sitting and worrying.

We decided to start a fundraiser for Angel Missions Haiti. Vanessa Carpenter, the Director of Angel Missions Haiti, helped care for my children in Haiti. My children spent most of their first year of life at an orphanage run by Vanessa Carpenter, “Three Angel’s Children’s Relief”. Without the loving care from Vanessa and other wonderful volunteers, my children would not have survived.

The last two months my family has kept busy taking orders, folding and stapling labels, and mailing Hope for Haiti Bracelets. My kids have enjoyed helping. They were very proud to speak to their classmates about Haiti and show off the bracelets that they were selling. Our extended family has helped as well. My sister helped put together a website to take orders from, and my mom has helped with mailing orders. So far, we have raised $1,000, but we still have many more bracelets to sell. We have sold them at schools, churches, stores, and benefits for Haiti. People from all over the world have helped our fundraiser. Bracelets have been mailed to France, Hungary, Germany, and around the United States. We have also had some wonderful volunteers that have contacted us through our website and are selling the bracelets in different parts of the country. We are looking for others that would like to help.

We received word last Saturday that my daughter’s birth mother is alive. She is living outside her home in Cite Soliel. We are still waiting to hear word from my son’s birth family. I am thankful that we have had something positive to work on during this time. My children are seeing how important their birth country is to our family, friends, and to others throughout the world. Thank you to all that have participated in our fundraiser. We will continue to spread our hope for Haiti one bracelet at a time.