By Tina Kitt

The Wauneta Breeze

The calls for help rising out of Haiti following that poverty-stricken country’s Jan. 12 earthquake have resonated deeply with people around the world.

In southwest Nebraska several relief efforts are underway, with a groundswell of support building.

This week, a trio of young mothers from Palisade and Wauneta announced they were teaming up to help gather needed supplies for the House of Hope Haiti Orphanage, founded in 2005 and supported in large part by board member Nanette Zander of Oberlin, Kan.

Missy Blackman and Crystal Hicks of Palisade and Wauneta native Barbie Wood Long, now of McCook, have established a Web site at angelbabyproject.blogspot.com for their “Andrew and Maya Angel Baby Project” to help publicize the never-ending list of items needed for infants orphaned in Haiti.

All three women have young children of their own and in their families have experienced the loss of precious babies. Their efforts to assist Haiti’s most helpless children honors the lives of Maya Blackman and Andrew Wood, who both died in infancy.

The women’s homes are serving as drop off points for donations of cash and infant supplies as well as health kit items which they will deliver to Zander. This spring, the Kansas woman will make a trip to the House of Hope Haiti Orphanage, located 40 miles north of Port-Au-Prince, to deliver badly needed items like diapers, blankets, formula, and infant Tylenol and Motrin.

“The orphanage/school in Haiti we chose was due to the fact that it has close ties to McCook and Oberlin,” explained Long, noting that Zander is the mother of a friend of hers. “She is on the board and goes to Haiti several times a year,” explained Long, noting that Zander will be returning to Haiti in March.

Long encourages people to go to the orphanange’s Web site — www.houseofhopehaiti.com — to learn more about the orphanage, its work and its needs.

This Saturday, Blackman, Hicks and Long will host an Angel Baby Project drive at the Walmart parking lot in McCook from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. MT/11 a.m. to 3 p.m. CT.

Last week the Nebraska United Methodist Conference suggested that anyone looking for a tangible way to contribute to the Haiti Earthquake relief efforts consider putting together health kits to be distributed in Haiti through the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) distribution centers already in place there.

The UMC Churches in Wauneta and Palisade are serving as drop off points for assembled kits as well as for materials to make additional health kits. The health kit drive will continue locally through Sunday, Feb. 7, with plans in place to deliver these kits and supplies to the southwest Nebraska drop-off point in Cambridge on Feb. 8.

Soucie Trucking of Cambridge, Neb., has volunteered to pick up the health kits from Nebraska’s six United Methodist districts for delivery to UMCOR’s distribution centers. Soucie Trucking has previously assisted UMCOR during humanitarian emergencies, delivering flood buckets and other kits to distribution points for hurricane relief.

“For people who are feeling powerless in being able to help those in Haiti, providing health kits is a tangible way they can make an immediate difference,” said Kathy Kraiza, director of UMCOR Sager Brown in Louisiana. She estimates that hundreds of thousands of health kits will be needed in the weeks and months ahead.

Area Lutheran Churches are also finding ways to help and are accepting cash donations for the Orphan Grain Train and Lutheran World Relief.

In Lincoln, Lutheran churches there have built and provide ongoing support to a number of churches, schools and orphanages in Haiti.

Gwelda Carlson of Lincoln, who traveled to Wauneta this past summer with her husband, Dick, to discuss the mission work in Haiti in which they have taken part in as supporters of the Haiti Lutheran Mission Society, said she has been inspired by the people of Haiti’s trust in God to take care of them, whether they live or die.

“Please continue to pray for our brothers and sisters in Haiti, the rescue efforts, the starvation needs and the medical attention needed. Pray for the families who lost loved ones,” says Carlson.

She stressed the importance of meeting the peoples’ day-to-day needs at present, before focusing on rebuilding the Del Mas School, which her church sponsors and which was destroyed in the quake.

Reliable organizations with a distribution network already in place include World Vision, Red Cross and Unicef.

“Let your financial support reflect your hearts,” said Carlson.

Health Kit Items

Place the following items inside a 

one-gallon plastic zip lock bag:

• 1 hand towel 

(15” x 25” up to 

17” x 27”)

• 1 washcloth

• 1 comb 

(large and sturdy, not pocket-sized)

• 1 nail file or fingernail clippers 

(no emery boards or toenail clippers)

• 1 bar of soap 

(3 ounce size or larger)

• 1 toothbrush 

(single, adult-sized brushes only in original wrapper)

• 6 adhesive plastic strip sterile bandages