It’s often said that home is where the heart is.
In Palmerston and the surrounding area, it’s a group effort with Ken Speers, president of Friends of the Orphans Canada (FOTO-CAN), working to bring a bit of that heart back home to people in Haiti.
Speaking to Speers and his associates Mark Robinson and Norm Eygenraam, at Speers home near Palmerston
Eygenraam noted that his business in Palmerston involves the manufacture and distribution of shelters of all different sizes.
“I’m constantly coming up with something unique for an application.”
He said the concept started last fall after helping to move a friend and a shelter was needed rather quickly on a shoe-string budget.
“We came up with a neat little setup and in four hours, we had a 12-x 16-foot unit from state of lawn to shelter full.”
Speers said the idea came up when he and other volunteers came back from the Dominican Republic.
Eygenraam was one of the people who saw the presentation at the church and saw the different makeshift shelters being used there.
He said the problem with those shelters is that it keeps heads dry, “but when the rains come, everything underneath gets wet.”
“The wheels of imagination started going and we came up with a variation of what we’d done for the friend of mine.”
After mulling it over for a bit, Eygenraam went to Speers with the idea.
Originally, the thought was for the group to provide a dozen or two shelters.
“It’s grown from there,” Speers said.
“… then I heard people asking if the efforts should stop at one shipping container,” added Eygenraam.
Speers explained that the current goal is to fill one shipping container.
“If the momentum continues, we’ll find someone to keep looking after this project.”
Speers said when the earthquake happened in Haiti, he was down there three weeks later.
“I was actually standing on a pile of rubble, where I’d stayed the year before … six stories up in the air.
“You see a little bit of the town on the way where we went to stay the night. They call them tent cities … but that’s a very big stretch of the imagination. Nothing can prepare you. I don’t care how much you see on TV?or hear about it. When you get down there and physically see it – the bedsheets hung from pole to pole.
Bedsheets separating whole families.
“They might call it a tent city for lack of better words, but it was just nothing but bedsheets. There were no tents. So when the rainy season comes in March, they’ve got bedsheets keeping them [only partly] dry, and mud underneath.
“You’ve got water and sewage flowing underneath.
Speers said the biggest request when he was down there three weeks after the earthquake, was for garbage bags.
“The bags were something which could be used to keep their clothing, or food, dry.”
As a result, Eygenraam added the biggest improvement that occurred to him was to put the shelters on a something of platform.
Eygenraam added that if the shelter is placed on blocks treated with an anti-termite solution, it will prolong the life of the building.
He said that their involvement in the project seemed natural, since Speers works with lumber all the time, there might be some deals or donations. Eygenraam had his own connections and inventiveness for the shelters.
Speers said “We’re hoping to fit materials for 90 shelters within the container. We’ve done the math.”
Each shelter will take up the equivalent of one inch of floorspace in the container, he said.
The materials to be shipped would be cut to spec at Eygenraam’s shop in town.
He said the amount of steel required would not take up that much time.
One way of reducing costs, might be to do the work on a Saturday and have people come in to assist.
Speers said organizers are also looking for people willing to donate battery-operated or cordless skillsaws.
“We need at least two or three of them.”
There was also a need for a number of other battery operated tools.
“It would be helpful if they were all the same battery size.”
Currently, organizers are about one-third of the way towards reaching their goal.
Eygenraam said a fundraising barbecue that was attended by more than 70 people, and the prototype building was on display.
Speers explained the event included those people go down to volunteer each year.
He added they have received brochures and taken them back to their respective communities.
Speers said people from Truro, Nova Scotia and Winnipeg, Manitoba who are working on this.
“The trip participants are the ones who are really pushing this,” he said.
Speers said the intent is to ship the shelters out in either late October or early November.
The hope is that they will have reached port and be ready to leave port in Haiti by the time the first of the groups of volunteers arrive in mid-February.
Speers said that volunteers will not be assembling the shelters, but rather assisting in teaching people how to assemble them.
“You have to remember the Haitians and most of Central America is used to working with concrete – not wood.”
Most of the wood currently used is for doors, windows or the like. “They’re just not used to seeing wood on the floor.”
It is equally clear, that these shelters are temporary in nature. But because they are enclosed, they can feel like a home.
Speers explained that the concept of the two to three year lifespan on the structures is mainly directed at the life of the floor.
“The shelters themselves could last 20 to 30 years depending on the elements.”
Eygenraam was uncertain of the life of the tarps under the intense sun, but the typical lifespan in the Canadian climate is 8 to 9 years.
Eygenraam suggested the rounded shape of the shelter may actually help weather storms.
Speers said Father Rick Frechette, one of the co-founders of the orphanage, and his web of connections will decide who gets the shelters and how they are assembled.
Speers explained that Frechette started work as a priest in Haiti 24 ago.
After four or five years, Frechette wanted to do more, so came back to the U.S.?to become a doctor. After another three or four years in Haiti, he decided once again that he wanted to do more, so he again returned to the U.S. to become a surgeon.
Frechette looks after various schools and medical health units in impoverished areas. He said there is also another facility for special needs children.
Another facility, Francisville not only teaches people how to bake, but what is created in those classes feeds those in the hospital.
Another unit of Francisville creates block for construction.
Robinson added that Frechette is also starting a factory to locally create prosthetic limbs for those in need.
Speers said, “They just can’t get them in fast enough, so they’re going to make their own.”
Speers said he started in 2003 in association with Listowel Calvary United Church. He estimated there were 13 people from Palmerston involved at that time.
Now annually, somewhere between 130 to 140 people go down every year to volunteer their time for the less fortunate.
Robinson added the first trip was tied in with Friends of the Orphans, Canada.
Speers said through our church, we asked to stay with NPH (Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos).
He said Friends of the Orphans Canada supports Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos homes for orphaned and abandoned children, in nine countries in Latin America and Caribbean.
NPH International is a charitable organization serving poor, orphaned, abandoned or other especially needy children with homes throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.
It’s mission is to provide homes in which the children receive food, clothing, health care and education in a Christian family environment based on the principles of unconditional acceptance and love, sharing, work and responsibility.
NPHI is committed to assuring the best possible care for those children through direct programs, through service to other caregivers and support organizations, and through direct engagement with the community in which the children live. A worldwide community of donors, staff and volunteers enables NPHI to help the children become caring and productive citizens in their countries.
Robinson commented that ion the beginning, he had his own business, a portrait studio, could only go for a few weeks at a time.
Once he retired in 2007, he was able to spend more time helping Speers to coordinate efforts and groups.
Speers commented that his own trips volunteering have ranged from two to nine weeks.
Both he and Robinson laughed as Eygenraam asked what the pair thought when he came along with this new project.
Speers said what Eygenraam has come up with is very affordable.
Eygenraam said in the brochure the donation breakdown amounts to the equivalent of a half cup of coffee a day over three years.
Speers quipped that he’d rather see people pay the $500 up front.
Eygenraam said that standing in the shelter, “to us it seems like a little shed … and to them it is like a castle.”
Speers said everyone goes down for different reasons.
“Ninety per cent of the time you get hooked going down just once.
Robinson said for many it’s like part of the family, especially for those going back and back.
“You see the kids grow and their language improve.”
Speers said “it’s hard to believe how much the orphanage changes from year to year.”
Speers attributes his own involvement as being his wife.
“My wife wanted to go somewhere for our anniversary.”
He said there was a couple who couldn’t go on that particular trip and had to back out.
“We stepped in and took their place, and I’ve been going back ever since.”
“I work with contractors day in and out, and at the end of the day when you hand over a three dollar tape measure or some other tool … and giving one tool to each tradesman down there. And the tears coming out of grown men. You just don’t know how much that hits home. It’s like an emotional roller coaster ride for me.”
Now, he said, group members always take tools down with them and leave them to start the shop for the children – whether it be for mechanics, carpentry or sheet metal.
He noted one lady from Mitchell has always been involved in sewing.
Each year, she and up to six older women teach sewing, crocheting, quilting and knitting.
“The children ask … is Pat coming this year?”
Robinson said Pat usually goes down for four weeks.
She goes down and there’s 200 children calling her by name.
He said after a person’s first trip down, “you’d probably want to go down every year as well.”
Costs to go for two weeks is $2,500.
Robinson explained that roughly $1,000 of that is for the flight, $500 covers costs while there such as food, lodging, transportation, weekend sidetrips. The remainder of the cost goes directly to the project.
Robinson said if costs can be lowered, any additional funds remain with the orphanage.
Speers added that because it is a building trip and people are going down as volunteers, there is a full tax receipt for the $2,500.
Robinson noted that for the past three years, part of one of the two teams going down is a medical team.
The medical clinic at the orphanage as a home base and different areas for different exams.
Prior to that team coming in, another team goes to the villages to see who needs the medical attention.
Over a two week period, the team processes roughly 120 people per day.
“Most of them don’t have enough money to get a checkup. And if they need something done, it almost needs to be on a payment plan over five or ten years,” Speers said.
“With the free clinics, there are usually nuns in the community, and we ask them to be the top 80 to 100 people who need medical attention and we’ll give them a free clinic.”
He said the medical team used to come every two years, but this marks the third year they’ve come every year.
“It’s to the point they are asking, do you mind if we come back again this year.
For more information visit the website www.fotocan.org or contact; Ken Speers 519-343-5161 missiontrip@sympatico.ca or Mark Robinson 519-343-5149 m.v.robinson@hotmail.com
Later this year, Palmerston/Fotocan Charity Golf Tournament in support of Friends of the Orphans Canada (FOTO-CAN) will be held at Pike Lake Golf & Country Club between Harriston and Mount Forest on Sunday, Sept. 19.
One hundred percent of all proceeds from the tournament will go towards the building fund for Friends of the Orphans Canada. FOTO-CAN is a non-profit, tax exempt organization with the sole purpose of providing support for disadvantaged children in South and Central America and the Caribbean.
