On January 12, 2010, a 7.0 earthquake rocked the already impoverished island of Haiti. Hundreds of thousands lost their lives and even more were left without a home and without basic needs such as toiletries, water, food and shelter. Immediately after the earthquake, HAC put together a relief clinic for the local Brooklyn community where Haitian families were able to make phone calls to family members in Haiti through a partnership with T-Mobile.
We also had a local chapter of the American Red Cross on site offering grief counselingand other services to family members of victims in Haiti. We also set up media stations with computers and scanners to upload pictures of missing family members and loved ones online to CNN-ireport and other media networks. 100% of the money collected that night was given to the American Red Cross for their work in Haiti. HAC did not receive a dime of these efforts for Haiti.
Our reward were the smiles off the face of parents when they reached their children, mothers, fathers, aunts and uncles on the phone and the tears that flowed from their eyes when those family members said “I am okay, I am alive.”