2016 started off with drought conditions that severely affected food production and costs in Haiti. The sector IC Haiti and St. Boniface Hospital serve was put on a famine watch list by the World Health Organization. Then in February the Zika virus, a mosquito-borne disease that affects unborn children, hit the families of the children in the Fr. Marc Piche school. IC Haiti responded with a $25,000 donation to St. Boniface Hospital for their community health and nutrition outreach program. In August, we were still able to fully fund the 2016-17 school budget thanks to the generosity of IC parishioners.

Then in October Hurricane Matthew devastated the southern area of Haiti where both the Fr. Marc Piche school and St. Boniface Hospital are located. The damage to homes, roads, and bridges was dramatic and severe, leaving the entire region cut off from immediate access to clean water and food. The school provided a sound shelter for many during the storm, but it too suffered some damage. Disease, particularly cholera, and starvation became terrible realities. Financially IC Haiti was not in a good position at that time to respond effectively to this emergency. Yet the need of our brothers and sisters in Haiti was urgent, so IC Haiti made an appeal to the parish. Cardinal Sean O’Mally made a similar appeal to the entire archdiocese of Boston.

IC Haiti’s Board of Directors set an aggressive goal to raise $10,000 in two weeks’ time to address the emergency relief needs in Haiti. The response was tremendous, praise God! A dress down day at IC grammar school raised close to $1300; Carol Robertson donated a beautiful quilt for a raffle that netted $2000; donations by IC Haiti supporters through PayPal amounted to over $5,000; and parishioners directly contributed $26,388. Within IC Haiti’s two-week period to raise $10,000, we raised close to $35,000. Wow! Before the end of October, we were able to send $30,000 for emergency relief to the St. Boniface Haiti Foundation which runs the hospital in Fond des Blanc and oversees the operation of our school, its lunch program, and health outreach programs in the area of southern Haiti. In January of 2017 we sent an additional $11,700 which included funding for continued hurricane relief efforts and for the higher cost of food for our school lunch program. In the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew, parishioners, the IC school community, and many individual supporters responded with a generosity that far exceeded our expectations. The Spirit was, indeed, present in our community, helping us to see our brothers and sisters in Haiti through the eyes of Christ.