Mainers raise funds, work to help survivors | Bangor Daily News
To help Haiti earthquake relief visit www.unicefusa.org.
Mainers raise funds, work to help survivors | Bangor Daily News
To help Haiti earthquake relief visit www.unicefusa.org.
Posted in Disaster, Health and Welfare
Tagged earthquake, Haiti, Haitians, Konbit Sante, Port-au-Prince
For more information on the St. Alban’s Haiti project, visit http://www.stalbansmaine.org/ and click on “Mission and Outreach.”
Visit http://tinyurl.com/35t496a for more information on the Hanger Ivan R. Sabel Foundation’s Haiti efforts.
Visit www.konbitsante.org for more on the Portland-based nonprofit.
Dr. Michael Regan met the girl — 14 years old, bright-eyed and sweet — in a hospital tent filled with flies and patients. Her lower leg had been crushed during Haiti’s January earthquake. She’d received treatment afterward, but in the nonsterile medical facility an infection had set in. Regan changed the pins in her leg, cleaned out the infection, gave her antibiotics. In the United States she could have had surgery in a state-of-the-art facility and would have been fine.
Not in Haiti. Regan predicted her leg will have to be amputated within a year. And there’s nothing the Auburn orthopedic surgeon could do for her — or for so many others in the very same tent.
“Oh, God, I can remember them all. There were so many of them. I’m a softy for kids, though,” he said. “I would have taken that kid in a heartbeat. If I could have found a way to get her here, she would be here.”
Regan returned from a stint in Haiti in March, one of three doctors with Central Maine Orthopaedics in Auburn to go. The doctors — Regan, Jeffrey Bush and David Brown — each spent a week in the impoverished country, taking turns away from their orthopedic practice this spring so while one was in Haiti two others could cover patients in Auburn.
Click on the link for the rest of today’s story by Lindsay Tice in the Lewiston Sun Journal.
LEWISTON — For two days after he returned from Haiti, Peter Geiger had trouble talking about his experience.
It was too emotional. Too intense. Simply too difficult to put into words.
“It was overwhelming,” he said.
Geiger had spent days as part of a rubble brigade, passing one bucket of debris after another down a line of volunteers working in 100-degree heat to clear a collapsed building that once housed a church and school. He had walked through the streets of a neighborhood built on trash, its water tainted brown. He had handed out soccer balls to children whose last play area was a sewer.
“Until you’re physically down there and you see it, smell it, hear it, it’s hard to describe,” Geiger said. “I knew it would be an emotional experience, but I didn’t realize, particularly until I came back, how emotionally I was affected by it. I’ve always been passionate about helping people, but this is a whole other level of need.”
Click on the link for the rest of today’s story by Lindsay Tice in the Lewiston Sun Journal. The story is accompanied by photos and video.
Posted in Disaster, Environment, Maine, Outdoors
Tagged aid, disaster, earthquake, Haiti, Haitians, humanitarian, Mainers, mission trip, relief, South Lewiston Baptist Church, volunteers
Web site to link Maine resources
for Haiti aid uses woman’s media skills
Mary Doyle doesn’t have medical expertise or a lot of disposable income for charitable donations, but she wanted to do her part for the people of Haiti and the Mainers who are helping there.
She does have a knack for bringing people together and developing Web sites, so she tapped those skills to create the Maine Friends of Haiti Web site.
The site lists the large number of Maine groups working to help the people affected by the Caribbean nation’s devastating earthquake, which hit Jan. 12, killing more than 200,000 people and leaving 1.5 million more homeless.
“I tried to think of something that could be helpful,” Doyle said. “There was no Web site or group that was tying all the different efforts together.”
Click on the link for the rest of this story by David Hench in the Portland Press Herald.
And here’s a link to the Maine Friends of Haiti website: http://www.mainefriendsofhaiti.org/mainefriendsofhaiti.org/Home.html
LES CAYES, Haiti – Not once in the four weeks and five days since he left Portland Harbor had Dave St. Cyr, a deckhand aboard the Maine relief ship Sea Hunter, uttered such an exclamation.
A United Nations Police patrol boat arrives at Sea Hunter’s anchorage Friday morning to provide security during the offloading operations off the coast of Les Cayes, Haiti.
“What chaos!” said St. Cyr, 54, of Portland as he came to the ship’s bridge for a breather late Friday afternoon. “It’s unbelievable down there!”
And long overdue.
Sea Hunter’s mission of mercy to earthquake-ravaged Haiti, delayed by raging winter storms and enough red tape to stop the 220-foot treasure-hunting ship dead in the water for days on end, is at last coming to an end.
Just after noon Friday, a Haitian customs official gave the long-awaited permission to begin offloading Sea Hunter’s estimated 200 tons of relief supplies.
Minutes later, the water around the ship exploded into a scrum of landing vessels and a cacophony of bullhorns, security sirens and, above all, shouting Haitian workers.
“This is it,” said Sea Hunter’s owner, Greg Brooks. “This is what we started out in Portland for. And it’s finally come to fruition today.”
Click on the link to read the rest of this story by Bill Nemitz of the Portland Press Herald.
Students collecting 1 million vitamins for Haiti | The Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram.
Tagged aid, donations, earthquake, Haiti, Haitians, relief, Seeds of Independence, students, vitamins
Tagged aid, Bill Nemitz, earthquake, Greg Brooks, Haiti, Haitians, Hope Village, Les Cayes, Miragoane Harbor, relief, Sea Hunter
PERU, Maine – Marilee Colpitts and Jamie Dennett had planned a missionary trip to Haiti long before the devastating earthquake on that island nation in January.
Their trip now will include their original goals, as well as helping some of the many children who have fled the capital of Port-au-Prince for Terrier Rouge, a city in the northwestern section of the country.
“We want to bring money for food and other things for the people who are fleeing Port-au-Prince,” said Dennett, who is making her fourth trip to Haiti. “Here, in this country, people go to the state. There, they go to the pastors.”
She and Colpitts, who is making her second trip, are among 14 people, mostly from Maine, who are representing His Hands for Haiti, a nonprofit Christian group based in New Vineyard that finds sponsors for some of the thousands of children who do not have enough food or cannot go to school.
Click on the link to the rest of today’s story by Eileen M. Adams of the Lewiston Sun Journal.
Tagged aid, Chrisitan group, donations, earthquake, food, Haiti, Haitians, Hands for Haiti, Lewiston, missionary, New Vinyard, nonprofit, Peru, Port-au-Prince, relief, school, Terrier Rouge
MIAMI — Preparations shifted into high gear in Haiti on Monday to receive the estimated 200 tons of donated relief supplies aboard the Maine ship Sea Hunter, while hopes rose aboard the ship that its five days in limbo here could finally end today.
But even as the crew lashed down cargo and looked forward to this morning’s arrival of a shipmaster who has volunteered to sail the rest of the humanitarian mission, new worries arose about the health of Sea Hunter owner Greg Brooks of Gorham.
Brooks said he spoke at length Monday morning with Dr. William Lynders, a Connecticut physician who has sailed with Brooks’s Sub Sea Research Inc. on several of the company’s treasure-salvage voyages.
The cell phone consultation followed a call to Lynders by Brian Ryder, the Sea Hunter’s chief engineer and shipboard medic. Ryder said he was worried about Brooks’ physical condition, including what appears to be a lung infection.
“I thought I was a strong guy, I still think I am,” Brooks said. “But it’s been a month of overwhelming things.”
Brooks said he would decide by this morning whether to continue on to Haiti or fly home to Maine after seeing the Sea Hunter off. Either way, he said, the decision will not be easy.
Click on the link for the rest of this column by Bill Nemitz of the Portland Press Herald.
Mr. Nemitz also added a Reporter’s Notebook about the Sea Hunter. A notebook typically are bits and pieces a reporter gathers, but never seems to find place in the main story or column. Here’s a link to the notebook by Mr. Nemitz.
Click for the latest update: Captain volunteers for relief mission
Tagged aid, Boston, Capt. Richard Devins, Coast Guard, Cross International, duty, earthquake, food, Gorham, Greg Brooks, Haiti, Haitians, hold order, licensed captain, Maine Maritime Academy, medicine, Miami, MMA, Orlando, Port of Miami, Portland, relief, Sea Hunter, State of Maine, supplies, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, unlimited master
Owner, crew of the vessel scramble
to address the Coast Guard’s safety,
licensing requirements as deadline looms
Updated at 1:25 p.m. EST
MIAMI — Negotiations between the owner of the Sea Hunter and the local Coast Guard station progressed this morning toward a possible compromise that would allow the Maine-based ship to continue its relief mission to an orphanage in Haiti.
“We’re continuing to talk,” said Greg Brooks of Gorham, the Sea Hunter’s owner, after speaking to Coast Guard officials repeatedly both in person and by cell phone.
“I’m hoping there’s a solution in sight,” Brooks said.
Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Michael Lingaitis visited the Sea Hunter late in the morning to deliver a “hold order” which would prevent the Sea Hunter from departing for Les Cayes, Haiti, before safety and licensing issues have been resolved.
“We’re willing to work with you,” Lingaitis told Brooks during a conference in the ship’s galley. “Let’s keep discussing this.”
The Sea Hunter, loaded with relief supplies donated by people and businesses through Maine and New England, sailed here from Portland without a licensed ship master, first mate and engineer as required by Coast Guard regulations.
Click on the link for the rest of today’s column by Bill Nemitz of the Portland Press Herald.
Coast Guard officials question
the qualifications of Greg Brooks’
crew as he tries to deliver relief supplies
MIAMI — A Maine ship bound for Haiti with relief supplies may be prevented by the U.S. Coast Guard from proceeding beyond the port of Miami, its owner learned Wednesday evening.
Greg Brooks, owner of the 220-foot Sea Hunter, was told by Coast Guard officials by telephone that he cannot sail the ship to Haiti without a licensed captain and first mate aboard.
Brooks, who usually uses the ship to search for sunken shipwreck treasures, said he has sailed without licensed personnel on past voyages because the Sea Hunter is documented as a noncommercial vessel and he understood that no such licenses were required.
That changed Thursday, when Coast Guard officials in Miami contacted their counterparts in South Portland to inquire about the qualifications of the crew.
“My heart feels like it’s been ripped right out of me,” said Brooks, who flew to Miami ahead of the ship late last week to arrange for the loading of additional relief supplies from a Florida-based relief organization.
Click on the link for the rest of today’s column by Bill Nemitz of the Portland Press Herald.
Here’s a link to an earlier dispatch about the problems: