HAITI RELIEF MISSION - URGENT!
LATEST NEWS
PHOTOS- PORTLAND
DONATIONS
3/21/10 - MISSION
COMPLETE!!!!!!
The ship finally made it back from it's
relief mission to Haiti and docked in Boston at 2 PM Friday. The US Coast
Guard was there along with customs and immigration. After what seemed like
forever the Sea Hunter got it's clearance into the United States, after a
9 day voyage from Les Cayes Haiti. It was great to see the crew once
again, hugs all around. After all we went through the mission was finally
over. Did I mention that it was successful? It was! We really wanted to
sail into Portland, our home, but that is not to be.
We put the
journey into a web show for the crew but decided to share it with
everyone, so click
here and take the journey with us.
2/4/10 - The M/V Sea Hunter has departed Boston and is
en route to Miami to pick up another 180 pallets of supplies. There are
also water purification units, more food and who knows what else awaits us
there. The 180 pallets are being donated by Cross International, Florida.
The crew worked many hours each day to make sure everything was packed as
tight as possible for this long journey, putting in 150% and getting it
done, and to them, we say thank you. To all the volunteers and donors, we
say thank you. Now the journey begins, the long trip down the east coast
to Miami, the loading, the unknowns and the trip to Haiti's southern
shore. What awaits us is not known, will there be thousands of homeless
waiting on supplies? Will there be the sick and injured? I'm sure there
will be lot's of unknowns during the coming weeks, but I'm also sure of
this, all our hard work will be worth it.
2/3/10 - It is truly
unbelievable the amount of supplies that are being donated. On our way to
Boston we heard that there were 20 or so pallets waiting on the dock for
us. As of yesterday afternoon it was 80 pallets of aid supplies. At
midnight a local group of Haitians stopped by the ship with 20 barrels
stuffed with food, clothes, water and everything in between. The phone is
ringing constantly, people want to help. Our crew has been working around
the clock stuffing the aid where ever possible, trying to keep room for
the containers in Miami, no small feat. But, it is getting done. I have
been in contact with Father Marc Boisvert who runs the large orphanage in
Les Cayes Haiti and he is waiting patiently for us to arrive with these
much needed supplies. The injured, the sick, the homeless are all in need
and father Marc does what he can with what he has, which is not much. The
children (over 700) need this aid as soon as possible.
Please donate
what you can, every penny will go to this mission. As much as I do not
like repeating myself, fuel is still needed. So go to the bottom of the
page and do what you can, we will get this aid to them soon. Thank
you.
2/1/10 - The ship is now in Boston. We will be loading supplies today and tomorrow and then departing for Miami to load the remaining containers.
Fuel is still needed to bring these much needed supplies to the people of Haiti, so please help as much as you can. Info at bottom of page.
1/31/10 - The ship's cargo holds are full! They are over flowing with water, rice, beans, baby food, tents, Teddy bears, can goods, blankets and on and on the list goes.
Thank you to all that donated! The deck is almost clear except for the large mobile medical unit parked there waiting to go to it's new home in Haiti. So, it is time to depart,
time to set sail on a journey, an adventure, a mission of the heart. This morning at 8 AM the M/V Sea Hunter will cast off it's lines and depart Portland Maine and head to Boston to
load containers that are waiting. Then it's off to Miami. The last port before we start the final leg of our journey to the southern shore of Haiti.
We will post updates and photo's on this page, so follow the mission as it happens and keep checking back often. FYI - we still need donations of cash or checks for the fuel effort, and again, thank you all.
1/30/10 - As I sit here writing this (2:30 AM) update I think to myself "How can I do this", this undertaking of going to Haiti? The last several days have been 15-18 hour days.
I am tired, bone tired, but I cannot stop, I must go on. Why? Because every morning at the ship for the last several days when I look upon the dock I see lot's of new donations that were not there the night before,
boxes and bags, food and toys, baby food and sleeping bags. Strangers stoping all through the night dropping off what they could, just to help others, people they don't know but the
need to help in some small way. Then the volunteers show up at 7 am in 10 degree weather to start the loading of these much needed supplies. I watch my crew
work all day, taking small breaks to eat a slice of pizza for lunch and stopping work at 9 pm exhausted, but then sitting down to plan the next days events.
My phone rings hundreds of times a day now, all wanting to help in some way or another. And I cannot leave out the "Freeport Flag Ladies", three women who were sent from the heavens to help us, they have been amazing!
There have been so many people helping it boggles the mind, and that is why I need to go on, to bring that sprit and the supplies brought by that sprit to the people of Haiti. Words alone cannot say how I feel about this mission and all the people
that are making it happen. To all, Thank you.
1/27/10 WE STILL NEED FUEL TO GET THE SUPPLIES TO HAITI, ALL DONATIONS ADD UP! Please help as much as you can. The turn out for donations Tuesday was fantastic. People came from all over Maine to donate what they could. Thank you all.
We will be loading these donations throughout today and securing them for the voyage to Haiti. Cash donations are still needed, so please, do what you can.
ATTENTION: Many of the countless thousands of children scattered among Port-au-Prince's makeshift camps of homeless have nobody to care for them, aid workers say, leaving them without protection against disease, child predators and other risks.
"They are extremely vulnerable," said Kate Conradt, a spokeswoman for the aid group Save the Children.
She said U.N. experts estimate there may be 1 million unaccompanied or orphaned children or youngsters who lost at least one parent in the Jan. 12 quake.
Some young Haitians are even being released from hospitals with no one to care for them — there just aren't enough beds for them.
Haiti, we can! (click the link)
We just had a donation of 3 - 40' containers of food for the orphanage!!! Outstanding.
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS SO FAR, and thank you.:
HAITI:
1/23/10 - Haiti's government has declared the search and rescue phase for survivors of the earthquake over, the United Nations announced Saturday, saying there is little hope of finding more people alive 11 days after much of the capital was reduced to rubble.
"Maybe there's a chance they're still alive," said Nicole Abraham, 33, wiping away tears as she spoke of hearing the cries of her children — ages 4, 6 and 15 — for the first two days after the Jan. 12 quake.
HAITI:
1/22/10 - Haitians are fleeing their quake-ravaged capital by the hundreds of thousands, aid officials said Friday, as their government promised to help nearly a half-million more move from squalid camps on curbsides and vacant lots into safer, cleaner tent cities.
HAITI:
1/21/10 - Tens of thousands more killed in Haiti's catastrophic quake lie beneath the earth in mass graves cut into this wide green hillside north of Port-au-Prince, buried anonymously and without ceremony above the turquoise waters of the Caribbean Sea.
And each day, the dead keep coming.
"I received 10,000 bodies yesterday alone," said Foultone Fequiert, 38, who was operating an earth-moving machine at one of the graves, his face covered with a T-shirt that seemed little defense against the overwhelming stench.
"I have seen so many children, so many children. I cannot sleep at night, and, if I do, it is a constant nightmare."
Despite pleas from the world that every effort be made to identify Haiti's dead, and that they be buried in shallow graves from which loved ones might eventually retrieve them, workers say there is simply no time for that — and little point.
"We just dump them in, and fill it up," said Luckner Clerzier, 39, who was helping guide trucks to another grave site farther up the road.
1/19/10 - I just got word that several
orphanages have collapsed outside Port-Au-Prince. One of these I visited
several times to visit the kids and bring them a few treats. They sang
songs for me, we played games. The building that housed their beds
collapsed, killing three children. They are sleeping outside now, with
very little to eat and drink. They must be moved, but, the roads are gone.
There is no way to move them by truck or bus, and no hope for them if
someone doesn't help. We will go there and move them by our ship if need
be, but we cannot do nothing! Please help.
"The government is a joke. The U.N. is a joke," Jacqueline Thermiti,
71, said as she lay in the dust with dozens of dying elderly outside their
destroyed nursing home. "We're a kilometer (half a mile) from the airport
and we're going to die of hunger."
Water was delivered to more people around the capital, where an
estimated 300,000 displaced were living outdoors. But food and medicine
were still scarce.
The crippled city choked on the stench of death and shook with yet
another aftershock Sunday. On the streets, people were still dying, people
were on their knees praying for help, pregnant women were giving birth on
the pavement, and the injured were showing up in wheelbarrows and on
people's backs at hurriedly erected field hospitals. Authorities warned
that looting and violence could spread.
The "major difficulty," it said, was the bottleneck at the airport,
under U.S. military control. It said a flight carrying its own inflatable
hospital was denied landing clearance and was being trucked overland from
Santo Domingo, almost 200
miles away in the Dominican Republic, delaying
its arrival by 24 hours.
French, Brazilian and other officials had earlier complained about the
U.S.-run airport's refusal to allow their supply planes to land. A World
Food Program official told The
New York Times that the Americans' priorities were out of sync,
allowing too many U.S. military flights and too few aid deliveries.
The U.S. has completely taken over Port-au-Prince airspace and incoming flights have
to register with Tyndall Air
Force Base in Florida, said Chief Master Sgt. Ty Foster, Air
Force spokesman here.
We at Sub Sea Research have
worked in Haiti for several years and have many friends we have not heard
from since the disaster. Our hearts and prayers go out to all. We are now
trying to mobilize a rescue mission to bring food and water to
Port-au-Prince. Our ship, a 220' supply vessel holds 110,000 gals of
fuel and 50,0000 gals of drinking water. We can carry on deck 1 million
pounds of supplies, food etc. We can make fresh water on board. We also
have underwater detecting equipment as well as a 100 ton a-frame lift and
40 ton crane. We need to fill our ship with supplies to bring to Haiti to
help. Please pass the word and we can do this. Our ship is berthed in
Boston and is ready to go. We were there for Katrina, we’re there for
Haiti.
The international Red Cross estimated 200,000 people were killed in Tuesday's
cataclysmic earthquake, based on information from the Haitian Red Cross
and government officials.
Hundreds
of bodies were stacked outside the city morgue, and limbs of the dead
protruded from the rubble of crushed schools and homes. A few workers were
able to free people who had been trapped under the rubble for days, but
others attended to the grim task of using bulldozers to transport loads of
bodies.
For the long-suffering people
of Haiti, the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation, shock was giving way to
despair.
"We need
food. The people are suffering. My neighbors and friends are suffering,"
said Sylvain Angerlotte, 22. "We don't have money. We don't have nothing
to eat. We need pure water."
The
devastating earthquake that has destroyed Haiti’s capital has aggravated
the already catastrophic economic and political conditions that have
characterized the island’s recent history. As a Haitian put it: “tout
ayiti kraze”— the whole country is no more.
Beyond the sense of utter
terror, pain and loss that is overtaking the population, the country is in
ruin.
The impact of the earthquake has been exacerbated by the huge
migration to Port-au-Prince over the past three decades, as Haiti’s rural
economy and people have been neglected by both the Haitian government and,
largely, by international donors. Poor people seeking a shimmer of
opportunity in Port-au-Prince have piled up on top of each other on
hillsides, ravines, alluvial flats and river flood plains. On Tuesday we
saw the effects of this concentration of people in a city that is not
built for them.
We
were there right after hurricane Katrina, we loaded supplies on board our
ship and sailed to the mouth of the Mississippi. The food and water and
other supplies reached people who had nothing. The big organizations
failed on Katrina, it was the small guys that helped the really needy. We
can help Haiti. You can help.
We have word from our attorney
in Haiti, things are bad and getting worse. People are starving, no water,
no medical. Remember this, governments are slow at doing things, we can do
it now.
We have set up an account at:
Pay to : SOLID FOUNDATION INTERNATIONAL
Solid
Foundation is a 501-C3 Non Profit
Charter
#20090221ND
Bottled water, rice, beans, cleaning and medical
supplies, soap and detergent are some things needed. Excavation equipment.
Candles, canned goods, can openers, tents, sterno, cooking oil, untensils.
Make sure you put your name and contact info on your
donation. If by chance we cannot reach our goal for the relief effort, all
funds will be returned.
You have all seen the devestation on the
TV, it saddens the heart. With your help, we can make a difference, a
dent.
In
times of emergency and disaster, the call to action cannot be ignored. No
one person can solve the world's problems, but every little bit of support
extended during and after a time of crisis adds up to a lifeline of help
and hope for those affected.DONATE THROUGH PAYPAL
George Wilson has donated his moving services to truck donations to the ship in Boston.
Wilson Moving - 207-775-2581
The ship while berthed in Boston will be at:
Boston Harbor Shipyard
>
256 Marginal St
Boston Ma 02128-2871
207-879-1758 office
Greg
Brooks
www.subsearesearch.com
To Donate Food etc
Contact Amy McGowen at
amy.mcgowen@yahoo.com
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