Lots of Hard Work and The Joy of Success

As we look back over our nine years, we are thankful for the extraordinary generosity of our volunteers and donors. We count our blessings and give thanks everyday for both as they continue to help make a difference in the lives of our children. We provide updates on our activities to our volunteers and our donors to keep them informed and provide transparency regarding our activities. The following is an abbreviated version of a recent such report.

Center of Hope Haiti, Inc Elementary School Program. Our school year started September 16th with 42 children enrolled - 15-First Graders (including 2 orphans), 14 Second Graders and13 Third Graders. Peggy Leriche, a former Teach for America volunteer from Texas, spent four weeks at our school working on lesson planning, classroom management, creating an interactive student centered classroom. She created templates that will be used throughout the year. Will Frager, our longtime friend and volunteer, returned from Paris, France to spend the summer at our school working on revising and updating our school curriculum; training and assessing teachers; identifying and interviewing orphan candidates; development and categorizing of resource materials; interviewing teachers and hiring a third grade teacher; and interviewing caregivers for the orphanage.

Staffing. Our school continues to grow and we now have grades 1-3 with excellent retention year over year.  We hired an additional teacher for the third grade class. This teacher will also serve as an activities director and tutor during after school hours.

Orphanage Update. Please join the COHH Board and our staff in welcoming our first orphans to our orphanage - Elbison Mompremier and Stanley Gauthier. Honestly, we feel like birth parents with longer labor pains. The boys are doing great. Both are in first grade and attend our school.

We have had some challenges trying to hire a caregiver that meets our criteria. Jean Gabriel, our Executive Administrator, has been advised to continue collecting resumes and conducting interviews. In the meantime Kari Fjeldberg, a volunteer from Oslo, Norway, is currently at the orphanage and will be staying until January. Kari, a school teacher in her homeland, is acting as interim caregiver until we are able to hire a suitable caregiver.

Construction. Jean Gabriel has done an excellent job of completing the construction for well and cisterns to provide an adequate water supply to the site as well as to pressurize the water in the kitchen and volunteer quarters. He also supervised the completion of the repairs to the cafeteria and dormitory bathrooms and roofs.

Crops. We experienced our first harvest of tomatoes, green peppers, plantains, bananas, corn and beans. These crops will help to offset our growing cost of food at the school and orphanage. The children and parents are actively involved in the maintenance of the garden.

Website. Our website has been completely revamped. We have updated our activities on our website and on our Face Book page. We encourage you to take a look at both and let us have your feedback. We are hopeful that we will be able to more broadly share our story with the broader community and attract more donors.

Annual Gala. Our annual gala is our primary fundraising event of the year. We try to reach as many potential donors as possible. Invitations have been mailed to everyone on our mailing list. We would welcome your help in encouraging relatives and friends to visit our website where they can participate in our Gala. We would, of course, also welcome your support.