Foundation Seeks Volunteers for Orphanage

By Sally Voth - This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

WOODSTOCK -- The catastrophic Haitian earthquake has led to Woodstock-based World Foundation for Children's biggest mission yet -- making room for more orphans in a country already full of orphans. It comes with a big price tag.

World Foundation for Children was started by Woodstock resident Bob Blair, whose former Christmas tree farm became the Volunteer Farm that supplies fresh fruits and vegetables to the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank.

His Haiti Mission Service Orphanage was started more than three decades ago, Joseph said. With the arrival of 12 earthquake victims, it's now home to 34 orphans. A new building is being constructed to house 60 children with the possibility of adding a second story.

The youngest child there is 8, said Joseph, who is staying with Elsea while having some medical needs addressed.

Besides caring for more people, Joseph's orphanage, as well as the schools and churches he heads are in greater need because most of the help is being concentrated in Port-au-Prince.

"The people have no work," Elsea said. "Most of his support for the orphans comes from the U.S."

Prior to the Jan. 12 earthquake, WFC knew of about 400 orphanages in the country, Blair said. He is looking for a group of 12-15 volunteers to go to Haiti next month to help at Joseph's orphanage. A group from Columbia Furnace Church of the Brethren is heading down April 5, Elsea said.

"This is just hopefully, the first of several [orphanages] that we will be able to help," Blair said. "Obviously, we're going to need to have partners with deep pockets. This project could run $15 million or more.

"Problems are just enormous. We don't really have a feel for how big the problem is. They had a problem with abandoned and orphaned children before the earthquake. They can't handle all of them with 300,000 deaths and the orphans that this produced. It square-rooted the problem. No one knows how many orphans there are there, but it may be 10 percent of the population, or a million people, a million kids."

WFC estimates Haiti Mission Service Orphanage needs $35,000 right now for expansion.

The foundation sent a Rockingham Memorial Hospital physician, Dr. Eric Kramer, and a volunteer to Haiti in February to assess the situation at Joseph's orphanage and a second orphanage with ties to WFC, the Matthieu Vingt-Huit Orphanage, Blair said. The latter orphanage plans to double its current size of 58 older children by adding babies, and $58,000 is needed, according to WFC.

Starvation was "pretty prevalent" in Haiti prior to the earthquake with signs of malnutrition -- red hair and distended bellies -- seen in children, Blair said.

"Sometime I cry in the [church] service to see people," Joseph said in his imperfect English. "I know they're hungry, and their belly flat."

Elsea first went to Haiti in 2000.

"You're different when you come back," he said. "You're just not the same person. We are so blessed here, and we don't know it.You see how they live you realize, hey, God has really helped me and God has really blessed me, and all you want to do then is help them."

Several of Joseph's children are in the U.S., and while he likes it here, he has no plans to stay.

"I can't stay here because God gave me lot to do in Haiti," he said. "I prefer to suffer with these people. [The U.S.] is a nice country, rich, blessed country. Thanks a lot because you pay attention to the suffering people in Haiti, especially the children. May God bless the American people for good hearts they have. I trust that it's an answer to our prayer because we pray and pray and pray, and God led us to some good people to help."

To donate, visit www.WorldFoundationForChildren.com. Donors can specify which orphanage they wish to donate to. Tax-deductible donations can be sent to WFC, 277 Crider Lane, Woodstock, VA 22664, or made online.