The Saint Boniface Haiti Foundation (SBHF) has been an invaluable resource for IC Haiti since our inception in 2008, providing us with “eyes on the ground” in the Fond des Blancs area to identify particular needs we can attend to. Starting with small but needed projects, we soon took on the mission of constructing and operating an elementary school in the rural community of Puit Chacha. Our Pastors, first Fr. Marc Piche and then Fr. Tim Harrison, fully supported this mission by having second collections taken up four times a year. The financial and prayerful support of parishioners and other generous donors has proven to be the backbone of IC Haiti’s commitment to its mission in Haiti to the present time. We have been able to meet our financial obligations to support the Fr. Marc Piche elementary school as well as to help fund health programs at the Saint Boniface Hospital in Fond des Blancs and to offer relief and recovery funds following natural disasters (2 earthquakes and 2 hurricanes).

In May of 2012, near the end of the first year in the Fr. Marc Piche school, IC Haiti was able to make two $20,000 grants to SBHF to help fund two new programs at the hospital: a dentalcare program and a maternal & child healthcare program. We were also able to complete the construction of the school building, to put down a deep water well on school property, and to have the school painted. On top of that, we covered the school operation expenses for the 2012-13 school year, while donating another $20,000 in early 2013 to continue to support an expanding maternal and child care program at Saint Boniface hospital.

In the spring of 2013, our Board of Directors made a commitment to fund a hot lunch program the following school year as well as a dental care program for the school children subject to the results of our fundraising. In the 2013-14 school year, administrative problems on the ground in Haiti blocked us from initiating the school lunch program. Fortunately, we were able to rectify that matter for the 2014-15 school year and have been providing breakfast and hot lunches to students ever since. The food program more than doubled our annual operating expenses for the school (from approximately $12,500 to $31,000), but we were still able to make two $25,000 donations to the hospital: one for the hospital’s dental program and one for the hospital’s pharmacy.

IC Haiti’s donors can certainly be grateful to God for the many blessings we have been able to share with our brothers and sisters in Haiti. Clearly both the school community in Puit Chacha and the hospital community in Fond des Blancs can “see” that IC Haiti does indeed “see” them. IC Haiti = I see hope!