This morning I received an email while at home.
"Peterson was discharged from the hospital and is now back at the facility. We have 13 moms and 16 kids. We’re out of beds."
Our facility is set up to accommodate 12 caregivers with their children, meaning there are 12 beds. The last couple weeks we have been completely full. In addition to taking in 13 caregivers and their 16 kids in treatment, there are also an additional five healthy siblings staying with us as well. That makes 13 moms and 21 kids for 12 beds. It's a full house: to say the least.
I called back a little panicked. Kerline (our health educator) answered the phone and said, "no problem, we have a solution."
Verdieu, our groundskeeper, who lives on site, gave up his bed to Peterson's mom. Plus, another Mother with only one child said they would take in another child to sleep in her bed.
These are the moments that tug at my heartstrings.
These children and their caregivers were complete strangers before coming to our site, and a week later they are offering up their beds to accommodate another in need. We have always strived for our treatment center to have a family-like atmosphere, and I think this is what it looks like.
The good news is that this will soon be a problem of the past.
We just started our project with the United Nation. Through their support, we will double our capacity. That means an additional 6 rooms, 12 beds, a health education building, a recovery wing and a sustainability workshop.
The site is buzzing with workers, supplies and plans coming to life. I can't tell you how much I love construction. I look around and see potential everywhere, and think about how great it will be to have the capacity to have 12 more moms staying at our facility.
But the most exciting part of doing construction in Haiti is seeing the 30-40 new faces in the facility everyday, thrilled about the opportunity to work. That’s 30-40 more families we’re able to directly impact.
They say that Haiti has an economic multiplier of six. That means for every one job created, six more follow. And we can see it happening right before our eyes.
Ladies come in from the village to sell food and beverages to all the workers. Motos are transporting people back and forth from the job site. All while the 200 sacs of cement, two tons of rebar, multiple sizes of wood, and mounds and mounds of gravel and sand are purchased from local business and establishments in Haiti.
Everything feels, exciting, full of potential and most importantly: hopeful.
At the beginning of the day I was trying to figure out how we can make room for one more, and by the afternoon all I can wonder is how big we can get.
Amy and I are beyond thrilled, about everything happening at Second Mile, but while were in this period of transition, we’re also running at capacity. Here are the top four things that could give you chance to get involved in this exciting time, and help take a little stress off of us.
1) Pray. Pray. Pray. We love more than anything when people are praying for our mommas, kiddos, employees, future projects, and just overall high spirits.
2) Hospital Bills. These past couple weeks we have taken on some pretty difficult cases. We didn't even think twice about these cases because we knew no matter what we would figure out how to provide for these conditions: hydracelphus, cerebral palsy, club foot/abnormities, and a heart condition.
These are special cases that need extra attention along with extra funding. They all need to see specialists and God willing they will all get surgeries. In our Holiday Catalog last year we asked for $1000 of funding for our critical cases. Since January 1st we have already spent $450. We predict this year we will need additional $1500 to cover all the needed hospital visits.
3) Community Help. Our local community has decided to build a church. We love Pastor Mark and would love to support his building efforts. We have already donated the supplies and materials to lay the groundwork of the church, but we need an additional $1900 to add to his Phase 1 of construction of the Jean Louis Church. All of our employees attend this church and in addition to over 300 people living in the village, so this something we would really like to offer to the surrounding community.
4) Building Projects. Although the two buildings are covered by the UN grant we have made some modifications the past month. We have added an additional health wing / pharmacy to the mix. This will help us support the various health needs of our children when were operating a larger capacity. We are hoping to have a combined effort of $6500 raised towards this new building.
We’re also constructing a sustainably workshop where we will produce yogurt, cheese, jam and bread to be sold local markets. Those profits will help strengthen our programs and increase our sustainability in Haiti.
As always, any contributions are greatly appreciated. You can send contributions via online, or send us a check:
Second Mile Haiti - 700 NW Gilman Blvd. #242, Issaquah, WA 98027
We are fans of both methods ;) (Please designate where you would like your contributions to go). Thank you for again giving us the chance to lay it all out there.