Now that the most urgent part of the local Haiti relief effort—sending medical volunteers on donated flights—has drawn to a close, logistics is the next challenge facing local organizers.
Priority one will now be getting the thousands upon thousands of pounds of donations—medical supplies, clothing, food, water, tents, tarps, linens and more (the list is endless)—which have been collected by a number of emergency and charitable agencies, public and private, since the Jan. 12 disaster.
Though the USVI Haitian Relief mission was able to transport some hundreds of pounds of medical supplies, that’s a drop in the bucket to what still needs to go. Donations toward the purchase of shipping containers are now needed. (See link at story’s end.)
Fraser Drummond of Bellows International, stepped in right away, offering the company’s immense warehouse for storage, and trucks to pick up the donations from around the island.
"Our first challenge now is acquiring a shipping container, so we can say to a shipping agency that we have containerized cargo," he said this week. "We hope to have everything out of the warehouse by the end of March."
The regular lines of shipping aren’t yet established in Port-au-Prince, which further complicates matters. "It’s a difficult task now, which should be fairly straightforward once the goods start to flow."
Drummond said, "There’s roughly enough donated supplies for six 40-foot containers in the warehouse." He expressed his appreciation of the community effort in gathering those supplies. "Most came pre-sorted. They did a great job of sorting and categorizing," he said.
With the caution that he didn’t want to overlook anyone, Drummond said, "The actual response of the community work of volunteers in the relief centers was amazing. Dr. Heath and Hans Oriol at the Four Winds Haiti Relief center, the Rotary Act benefit in the parking lot, Antilles and all the other schools, Sen. Donastorg’s office, UVI and Florie and Harry Magras at the Frenchtown Community Center. They really did an incredible job."
Oriol and Dr. Alfred Heath, along with dedicated volunteers—including LouEllen Brown who has been at the Four Winds location every day since its inception, Maria Brady and, recently, Nicole Greaux—have worked day and night collecting, sorting and packing vast amounts of donations.
The center will stop taking donations at the end of this week, Oriol said.
Heath, who has his own aircraft and has flown to Haiti to volunteer as a doctor, said he will pilot over some of the donated supplies himself in the next few weeks. Heath has flown to Haiti for the past 20 years for humanitarian work.
Gratitude for every little thing that reaches Port-au-Prince is deeply felt, say the returning volunteers—whether it’s band-aids, bottled water, food, tourniquets, a medical procedure, or a simple smile and a touch.
Oriol, vice president of the Haitian Association of the Virgin Islands, recently came back from a visit to his home country. He flew over with the USVI Haitian Relief mission, wearing several hats including logistic coordinator and translator. (Oriol speaks five languages, including English, French, Creole, Spanish and German.)
Speaking earlier this week, while seeing off the last batch of Haiti volunteers, Oriol spoke about the impact of the V.I. contingent at the Haiti Community Hospital.
"One thing," he said, "there are so many countries there, people from Bangladesh, Canada, France, Spain, Germany, Korea, Switzerland, but they all commented on the Virgin Islanders for their compassion. They were singing the praises of our team."
Oriol said, "It’s a great sacrifice for everyone, and they were nothing but positive."
He said, "A group of Baptist missionary nurses cooked a hot meal for the staff daily. That was the only one we got, but if one of our team missed the meal, you never heard a complaint."
Oriol said he was kept busy in the pharmacy sorting out all the medications in all the different languages. "There’s so many supplies. Boxes of pharmaceuticals in all different languages, Korean, Spanish, Japanese, French."
He said, "It’s truly inspirational that a little island of 50,000 people raised so much money. We have to help our little brothers. Yanick and Patrick Bayard of Sea Chest, and their customers and employees raised $20,000 alone."
At a Hull Bay benefit, another $15,000 was raised by the Northside Sportfishing Club, St. Thomas Fishermen’s Association and Virgin Islands Game Fishing Club.
Oriol took delight in mentioning that for a last touch before he left, the group raised a V.I. flag on the hospital roof, which is a special area. It’s the volunteers’ tented sleeping quarters.
