Food For The Poor, based in Coconut Creek, Fla., is rushing critical aid to families in Haiti’s southern peninsula who are now suffering from heavy rains from Tropical Storm Grace in the same area affected by Saturday’s major earthquake.

 

On Tuesday, a convoy of trucks carrying relief supplies left FFTP-Haiti’s Port-au-Prince office. Three trucks left for Les Nippes after Bishop Oge Beauvoir, Executive Director of FFTP-Haiti, prayed over the drivers.

 

This follows five containers that arrived safely in the southern peninsula, along with two trucks of medical supplies sent to the General Hospital of Les Cayes.

 

Food and other essential items were distributed on Monday to grateful families in Chantal.

 

Local officials negotiated over the weekend with gangs blocking the southern outskirts of the capital to allow humanitarian convoys to pass.

 

Haiti already was in an extreme crisis before the earthquake, due to civil unrest and gang violence, the assassination of the president and a surge in COVID-19. The charity now is anticipating even greater needs for months to come.

 

“It’s unimaginable that families forced out of their homes because of the earthquake are now also dealing with a tropical storm and the risk of flash floods and landslides,” FFTP President/CEO Ed Raine said. “We stand with the people of Haiti and pledge to do everything we can, with the compassionate and generous support of our donors, to bring relief to the many who are suffering.”

 

One of the main needs is clean water and FFTP has purchased a container in-country to expedite relief.

 

To further expedite relief, a barge to Jeremie has been secured to deliver 15 containers to the wharf there. The charity relied on a barge in the past after Hurricane Matthew devastated the same region in 2016.

 

FFTP has 99 containers either en route or already in the port in Haiti. Sixty-four of those containers contain food, primarily rice from the Republic of China (Taiwan) and MannaPack rice meals.

 

Seventeen more containers will be picked up at various points in the United States over the next two weeks.

 

Dieuseul Simon Desras, the Minister of Planning and External Cooperation in Haiti, said that seven out of 10 homes were destroyed in Les Nippes, the epicenter of the earthquake.

 

The charity is securing zinc and lumber to repair homes damaged in the quake in addition to tents to provide temporary shelter to families on their properties.

 

A technical team from FFTP-Haiti is flying to the southern area today to assess housing built by the charity, old and new. It is possible that some of those left homeless by the earthquake might be able to move into the new homes, even if they have not been painted.

 

Donors can help FFTP deliver aid to Haiti in three ways:

 

• Make a cash donation. Go to www.FoodForThePoor.org/haitiemergency

 

• Provide relief items via FFTP’s AmazonSmile Charity List: www.FoodForThePoor.org/emergencysupplies

 

• Bring canned goods and first aid kits to the charity’s Coconut Creek warehouse, 6401 Lyons Road, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays. For more information on the specific items accepted, please go to www.FoodForThePoor.org/haitiaid

 

Learn more about FFTP’s collection drive and how FFTP is responding in Haiti in this YouTube video: https://youtu.be/ktV41fM1ElA

 

Food For The Poor, one of the largest international relief and development organizations in the nation, does much more than feed millions of hungry children and families living in poverty primarily in 17 countries of the Caribbean and Latin America. This interdenominational Christian ministry provides emergency relief assistance, clean water, medicine, educational materials, homes, support for vulnerable children, care for the aged, skills training and micro-enterprise development assistance. For more information, please visit www.FoodForThePoor.org.

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