Haiti update

Posted on March 22, 2012 by Michael

I leave for Haiti tomorrow. I will first be in Connecticut for Friday night, then Saturday morning I will be leaving from JFK. I should arrive in Port Au Prince sometime around noon. For anyone interested in tracking my group’s activity, we will have an international phone that shows our location. We can also post updates on what we’re doing (and I suspect we will). Go to this website to see everything. It looks to me like everything is visible without logging into anything, but I’ve been given a password for everyone to use: haiti2012.

I’ve scheduled a number of blog posts and I’m going to arrange for someone to monitor things while I’m gone. I don’t know if he will make any posts, but I’ve made it so he can. I’ll be back home on the 31st.

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Haiti reminder

Posted on February 25, 2012 by Michael

This is just a quick reminder about my Haiti trip and the continued need for donations. We have an online auction as well as a page for straight donations. Anybody who wants to post this on their Facebook wall or blog would be greatly appreciated.

Every little bit helps.

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How to help Haiti

Posted on February 20, 2012 by Michael

I have more information for my upcoming trip to Haiti. First, there is an online auction which is currently taking place. There aren’t a ton of items on there, but there are some really good ones. For instance,

Weekend at the Ocean

Labor Day, 2012 weekend stay (3 nights) at a cabin on Round Pond Harbor (near New Harbor and Pemaquid Point), sleeps 6, use of 3 kayaks, extra night available for $100

The starting bid for that is $100 (which is an incredible deal for just about anything on the Maine coast during the last day of the summer season). It is valued at $500, but even that is still a great deal. Who knows what it will go for, but it can’t hurt to put in a bid.

My second piece of updating has to do with the way one can donate. We still need things like craft and school supplies and medical items which can be sent directly to UMA (see here), but one of the best ways to help is by donating good, ol’ cash. Fortunately, we have managed to get things up to speed for the 21st century and it is now possible to donate online. Every little bit helps.

I’m going to do what I can to keep things up to date here, but it can’t hurt to also like our Facebook page.

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Thank you, Mountain House

Posted on January 28, 2012 by Michael

In my recent post about my upcoming trip to Haiti I mentioned that I planned on purchasing Mountain House meals. I used these for a trip I did nearly 3 years ago over part of the Appalachian Trail known as the 100 Mile Wilderness. It was a grueling hike that took over 8 days and required everyone involved to lug in a lot of weight; we probably started with 45 pounds each, trekking over some of the most difficult terrain the AT has to offer. The Mountain House meals made things much easier than they otherwise would have been. We saved space and weight, plus they were extremely easy to prepare (boil water, dump boiling water in pouch, wait, eat). I have to imagine they will be a big help for us in Haiti, especially considering the fact that we specifically have space and weight concerns.

With my past trip in mind, I sent off an email to Mountain House. I gave them the details on what I will be doing and asked if they would be willing to make a donation. As I said in my email, I plan on buying the meals whether or not the company can help us out, but I let them know anything they could do would be hugely appreciated. To my delight (and, in March, to the delight of a number of Haitians), they offered to match whatever I purchased up to 20 items. That constitutes a donation of approximately 40 meals (each pouch is two servings). This is going to make a positive impact all around. Not only will we have more food to share with our hosts, but we will have more space for carrying in other supplies such as crayons, pencils, clothes, and more.

In addition to thanking Mountain House here on FTSOS, I have also thanked them on the Facebook page for the trip. Only a few students have “liked” the page so far (I recently created it), but it would be good for anyone to like it. I plan on utilizing it to get information out there on how to donate, including updates on bidding in an online auction of various items. (The auction is meant to bring in money we will be directly giving to Casale.)

So again, thank you to Mountain House and don’t forget to like our Facebook page.

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Thought of the day

Posted on September 9, 2011 by Michael

I found out today that my tentatively planned trip to Haiti (it depends upon things getting approved on my university’s end) will involve the study of cholera as well as the two types of starvation in children, kwashiorkor and marasmus (the former involves a distended belly whereas the latter is emaciation). I don’t know much about either one, but I figured I would throw it up here in a post so I could at least have an easy way to get to the terms – “kwashiorkor” is not the easiest word to recall, after all.

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Oh, Rush

Posted on January 15, 2010 by Michael

Rush Limbaugh recently said this:

Everything this president sees is a political opportunity, including Haiti, and he will use it to burnish his credentials with minorities in this country and around the world, and to accuse Republicans of having no compassion.

So what does Rush want? Should Obama not help Haiti? Was George Bush right when he initially only offered $35 million in aid after the 2004 tsunami? Perhaps he should have given less?

The reason anyone might accuse Republicans of having no compassion is because Limbaugh is the unofficial icon of the party and he says garbage like this. If he doesn’t like being perceived as heartless, then he needs to stop being heartless. It’s pretty simple.

He also appeared to discourage help for the island nation, saying, “We’ve already donated to Haiti. It’s called the U.S. income tax.”

So don’t give any more, people! What Obama has donated so far counts as your contribution! Idjit.

Text “HAITI” to 90999 to automatically donate $10 to the Red Cross.

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Donating to Haiti

Posted on January 13, 2010 by Michael

As probably everyone knows, a terrible Earthquake rocked Haiti recently. The estimates for the death toll are highly varied this early on, but I’ve so far read numbers ranging from 100,000 to 500,000. It’s possible this could be worse than the 2004 tsunami that killed roughly 230,000 people (though I doubt the economic damage will be worse given Haiti’s deep poverty). Haiti has a population just under 10 million. That means there’s a loss likely between 1-5% of the population. That would be 3 to 15 million people being wiped out in the U.S., not to mention the massive swath of individuals displaced.

As one might imagine, aid is greatly needed. There are a ton of avenues for making donations, but one of the easiest is through the Red Cross. Texting “HAITI” to 90999 will donate exactly $10.

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