Haiti Water Relief

I traveled to Haiti on February 9th to meet with Rotary 4060 in Santo Domingo of the Dominican Republic. This was Rotary 4060’s Disaster Relief Committee meeting to plan, schedule, allocate donated funds, map and plan truck convoys to Port-au-Prince (PAP) and, to introduce WaterBrick to its members. It was decided that WaterBrick would be warehoused and distributed from 4060’s UN Cargo location in PAP. In PAP, I was introduced to and met with Dr. Claude Surena, President of Haiti’s Medical Association, to discuss their need for WaterBrick and how distribution would be implemented. Dr. Surena said they needed a minimum of 400,000 WaterBricks which would be 2 per their 200,000 tents requested from the United Nations that would arrive soon. Dr. Surena stated that water and food storage containers were necessary to establish sustainability for the homeless but that 750,000 was really needed to make a real difference. The first container load of WaterBricks is now on its way to Port-au-Prince in Haiti with additional manufacturing underway for many future loads to be delivered.

Also, we delivered food, medications and WaterBricks to the Good Samaritan Hospital and two orphanages in PAP. We then made commitments to return with additional WaterBricks and food on our next trip in early March. After our forty-hour convoy to deliver these much needed supplies and, without sleep, we returned back to Santo Domingo and I flew home on February 16th with a much better understanding about the needs of Haiti and its many homeless families. We need to continue our efforts with greater commitment and understanding that this is only the beginning of the worst; yet to come.