3/11/2010
Western Oregon Catholics donate $522K for renewal in Haiti
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Catholics in western Oregon have now given more than a half million dollars for earthquake relief in Haiti. The tally as of last week was $522,000. The money goes to Catholic Relief Services, one of the main service providers on the island.
Meanwhile, Holy Trinity School in Beaverton raised almost $4,000 to help aid those in Haiti through Tigard-based Medical Teams International.
Last week, representatives of Medical Teams International were at Holy Trinity to talk with the 243 students about how their donation will help support efforts in Haiti.
Eighth-graders were touring Medical Teams International on Jan. 12 to learn more about poverty throughout the world. That was the day the earthquake hit Haiti.
They were moved by the devastating event and decided to organize a fundraiser at school. They talked to all the students and started a two-week project focused on how much U.S. residents have and how they can appreciate the things we take for granted.
For example, students counted how many shirts were in their houses and brought in 5 cents for every shirt. On another day, they might bring in 25 cents for every meal the whole family ate. For 10 school days, students from kindergarten to eighth grade brought in their change, dollar bills and checks.
One grandparent was so moved when the eighth graders spoke at Mass that he decided to sponsor a pizza party for the class who raised the most money. The eighth-graders prevailed.
In Haiti, a Catholic school supported by Portland’s All Saints and The Madeleine parishes is in turn helping others thrown off by the Jan. 12 temblor.
Members of Louverture Cleary School near Port-au-Prince helped rebuild 100 yards of perimeter wall for Saint-Louis de Gonzague School, run by the Brothers of Christian Instruction. Saint-Louis de Gonzague enrolls 1,200 secondary students and aims to serve another 3,500 students from the Port au Prince area. Its wall fell in the earthquake.
The rubble removal required loading 7 to 8 tons of broken cinder block and concrete into large sand trucks by hand, one shovelful at a time.
Patrick Brun, chair of the Haitian Project that supports Louverture Cleary, is a graduate of St. Louis Gonzague.
“St. Louis Gonzague brings 150 years of history, challenge and education to Haiti,” Brun says. “There are a lot of Brothers from SLG that have given their lives to Haiti and are buried here now. The match with Louverture Cleary School now is perfect. There is a lot now that SLG can learn from LCS’s charism of work. Yesterday I was speaking with Brother Sarell, who has been a leader in getting the school reopened, about LCS’s charism of work. When we finished talking, he looked at me with a smile and picked up a shovel.”
Brun says the cooperation between schools “announces a better future for Haiti.”
Last week Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley paid a visit to Louverture Cleary.
The morning included breakfast and a tour through the neighborhood, plus a visit to the grave of the archbishop of Port-au-Prince, who died in the earthquake.
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