Hurricane Matthew Relief Fund

It’s been fifteen months since Hurricane Matthew wreaked havoc across Haiti. In that time, your generous support has funded work by a group of 11 vetted GlobalGiving partners who responded in the immediate aftermath of the storm to provide emergency supplies and aid and have remained on the job in the months since to assist communities on the long road to a full recovery.

We have now closed the Hurricane Matthew Relief Fund, and this will be the final update you’ll receive about the impact of your donations. If you’d like to continue to follow the progress of our partners who continue to support recovery efforts in the region, you can check out our partners’ latest updates on our website.

In this final update, we’d like to highlight the work of four of our partners committed to supporting long-term recovery in Haiti through agricultural and education projects.

For more than a decade, Lambi Fund of Haiti has partnered with the Center for Plantain Production in the Artibonite region of western Haiti to support more than 245 plantain farmers. After Hurricane Matthew, these plantain farmers faced two serious threats to their livelihood: storm-damaged fields and soil that was beginning to show nutrient deficiencies that would lead to weaker crop yields. Rather than letting their fields lie fallow to replenish their nutrients, these farmers, with the support of Lambi Fund, planted to okra, tomatoes, and beans. Growing these crops allowed the farmers to offer marketable produce at a time of high need after Matthew and restore the quality of their soil.

Last month, Peace Winds America returned to the rural Saint Jean du Sud in southwestern Haiti to continue its support of the community as it rebuilds after Matthew. Their work included training carpenters and masons in disaster-resistant construction, establishing community centers to provide agricultural and livelihood trainings and afterschool activities, and improving hygiene training for schools and households.

Farmers across northern Haiti who are still working to restore their farms to their pre-Matthew levels of output have received 10,000 packets of seeds through Seed Programs International’s partnerships with local organizations. In addition to directly helping farmers, the seed packets are being used in agricultural education and sustainable nutrition programs.

Hope Health Action’s work to rebuild a storm-damaged school in Musotte is nearing completion—last month they reported that the building’s new concrete roof has been installed and now all that remains before students can return is finishing classroom interiors, and cleaning and painting the buildings’ exteriors.

Thank you again for your generous support of the Hurricane Matthew Relief Fund. By investing in the work of community-led nonprofits, you’ve funded the long-term recovery work that, while often out of the public eye, is vital for communities to thrive again after a disaster.

Warmly,
Britt Lake + the GlobalGiving Team

In the year since Hurricane Matthew tore across the Caribbean, leaving 586 people dead and causing billions in damage, our trusted nonprofit partners have worked tirelessly to help the people impacted by the storm's devastation recover and rebuild.

Thanks to support from more than 3,000 of you who raised more than $300,000 to fund relief efforts, our partners in the region have made an incredible impact in communities affected by Matthew. Here is just some of the work your donation has supported over the last year:

• Beyond Borders helped 230 families on Haiti's hard-hit Lagonav Island begin putting their lives back together after the storm. Their team repaired and rebuilt 89 homes, rebuilt 80 sanitary latrines, and distributed 332 goats, 64 pigs, and donkeys to affected families. Alongside that support, they provided training on livestock care, health education, and financial support to the impacted communities.
• Lambi Fund of Haiti, which has been working with rural farmers in the country for 20 years, provided funding to 22 of their partners in the Department du Sud region to help repair food-producing gardens, purchase new seeds, and improve topsoil to maintain food production.
• Seeds Programs International has been supplying tools, fertilizers, and tens of thousands seed packets to restore flooded community gardens and farming cooperatives across Haiti.
• In the immediate aftermath of the storm, Fishing for Families in Need worked with local partners to distribute a 40-foot shipping container full of emergency relief supplies on the islands of Nassau and Grand Bahama in the Bahamas. In recent months, they've organized a group of 100 volunteer high school students from Florida to restore and repair an orphanage on Grand Bahama.
• Peace Winds America has focused their efforts on seeking out communities that had been overlooked in relief distribution. They've partnered with local municipal and school leaders to rebuild and refurbish schools damaged by Hurricane Matthew in southwestern Haiti, and distributed textbooks to 2,700 students at 11 schools in the region. To address widespread damage to homes in the area, they supplied more than 8,000 people with building materials and toolkits, including hammers, saws, gloves, and nails, to repair their homes, and provided training workshops on proper storm-proofing procedures.
• With more than 30 years of experience working in Haiti, Partners In Health was well-prepared to provide emergency medical care immediately aftermath of the storm, as well as continuing to serve patients at their 12 permanent sites around the country. They assisted in the repairing and rebuilding of Immaculate Conception Hospital in Les Cayes, the only public hospital in a region of more than 1.5 million people. And as an outbreak of cholera erupted in the chaos after the storm, they coordinated with government officials to ensure the vaccination of 729,000 Haitians.
• Hope Health Action has been hard at work rebuilding the Mussotte Baptist School in the coastal town of Miragoane in southwestern Haiti so that 465 students can safely return to their studies. In response to the cholera outbreak, their cholera treatment center helped vaccinate more than 20,000 people, and they operated mobile health clinics that provided medical care to thousands more.
• MAP International, which specializes in the delivery of emergency supplies after natural disasters, shipped 301 pallets of medicine and relief supplies to Haiti after the storm, including oral rehydration salts to help treat people suffering from cholera.
• CARE's Emergency Response Team was on the ground in Haiti ahead of hurricane season and was able to address people's immediate post-storm needs, like access to safe drinking water and sanitation and hygiene supplies. Their staff remained on the job long after the hurricane, distributing seeds and cuttings to farmers, rebuilding and repairing damaged schools, and providing psychosocial support to affected community members.
• Petit Trou de Nippes, a commune of 36,000 people in southern Haiti was nearly destroyed by Hurricane Matthew. Colorado Haiti Project has worked in Petit Trou de Nippes for more than 25 years and began delivering emergency relief like food, safe drinking water, clothing and medical supplies immediately after the storm. In the months that followed, they opened a seed bank that's provided more than 6,000 families with grain seed and made seed kits for corn, beans, chard, okra, watermelon, and leeks available to local farmers as well.
• The St. Boniface Haiti Foundation operates the best-equipped medical facility on Haiti's southern peninsula, and their hospital's staff saw more than 8,000 patients in the first six weeks after Hurricane Matthew. They sent mobile clinic teams to hard-hit outlying areas in Les Cayes and Tiburon where they delivered medical care to more than 1,000 patients and distributed food, safe drinking water, and tarps for emergency shelter. In coordination with Haiti's Ministry of Health, their staff distributed oral cholera vaccines to more than 20,000 residents. In subsequent months, their Community Health Team has visited remote communities to monitor and treat child malnutrition that has arisen due to food insecurity caused by the storm.
• ActionAid International USA's team of local women leaders trained in disaster response immediately sprung into action in Grand'Anse in southwest Haiti, surveying families in temporary shelters to identify needs and then distributing emergency food and water. They then launched a rapid response "cash for agriculture" program which provided grants to 743 women in Grand'Anse to cover household expenses and supplied starter vegetable seeds and potato seedling to allow them to restart their family farms.

As you can see, your donation has had made a wide-reaching impact on families recovering from the destruction of Hurricane Matthew. And because you made the smart decision to donate cash to fund relief efforts, your support made an immediate impact for those in need, and our community is continuing to stand with the people of Haiti and the rest of the Caribbean as they recover from the impact of Hurricane Irma this season. Thank you for your generous support, and we'll continue to keep you updated on the progress to come.

Warmly,
Britt Lake + the GlobalGiving Team

With torrential rains and winds exceeding 160 mph, Hurricane Matthew made a devastating journey through the Caribbean, where more than 1,000 people lost their lives and another 1.4 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance.

Even before the storm made landfall on October 4, we began reaching out to our partners on the ground in Haiti, Cuba, the Bahamas, and the southeastern United States. Since then, more than 20 organizations have begun responding. Here are four examples of GlobalGiving partners that are assisting survivors across the affected region now:

• Partners In Health and its sister organization, Zanmi Lasante, are on the ground in Haiti responding with medical supplies and urgent health care for people critically in need both immediately and in the long-term.
• Emergency food is on its way to the southeastern counties of Florida thanks to Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida.
• Beyond Borders is helping 100 vulnerable Haitian families repair and rebuild their homes, providing access to seed and tools so families can have more food, and supplying livestock or market goods families can sell to help them make a full recovery.
• In The Bahamas, the storm has left many people without power or homes, and has left many people injured. Fishing For Families in Need is helping families get back on their feet by providing emergency supplies.

We’ve seen considerable concern about giving to relief efforts in Haiti because of billions of dollars in humanitarian aid that Haitians never saw after the devastating earthquake that struck the island in 2010.

But, as I wrote this week in the Huffington Post, you can be optimistic because you have made a great impact in two major ways: by giving cash and giving locally! Local organizations know the needs of their communities best, and giving cash instead of items helps them use funds to purchase the items they need most. If you have friends or family who’ve expressed skepticism about Hurricane Matthew relief efforts, you may want to share my post with them.

Over the coming weeks, we’ll share further updates on the impact your donations are making for the millions affected by Hurricane Matthew. We’re so grateful to donors like you who are part of our giving community committed to survivors of disasters like this one.

Warmly,
Britt Lake + the GlobalGiving Team