100 Thanks!

A huge thank you to all who helped make our recent fundraising event, A Night of Art, Film, Dance and Fun: Raising Funds for a Healthy Haiti 6 Months After the Earthquake such a tremendous success!

Each one of our generous collaborators, selfless volunteers, supportive donors, and fantastically fun guests, made the Friday, July 16th 'bedefit' an incredibly special event. Between donations collected at the door and the bar, earnings from our impressive silent auction, and online contributions from our website and collected through Square, the 100 Beds for Haiti campaign raised over $8500 to get needed beds to our partners at Hôpital Sacré Coeur!

In the coming days we will post more details on the amazing individuals, organizations, and companies that were critical to making this possible, as well as an update on how your generous contributions are helping bring our campaign goals forward and bring beds to Haiti. For now, please take a moment to relive the awesome affair with these great pictures from the party:

click for even more photos!

100 thanks to each of you who made this possible!

Six Months Later: Haiti's Continuing Recovery

It has been six short months since the disastrous earthquake struck Haiti, leaving unprecedented disaster and trauma for the nation of people who are no strangers to suffering. In an instant, the fragile health care system was shattered and overwhelmed by thousands of injured victims. It will take years, if not decades, to rebuild the country including its hospitals.

Today, on the six-month anniversary of this tragedy, the 100 Beds for Haiti Campaign continues responding to the ongoing need at Haiti’s Hôpital Sacré Coeur, where a shortage of hospital beds is compounding the extreme challenges facing health care professionals and the patients they are treating under the most difficult circumstances.

Together with an amazingly talented group of volunteers, I have dedicated these past six months to sending desperately needed hospital beds to the injured, sick and dying at this hospital: because of your help we have successfully shipped 70 beds to this hospital and we need your help to send 30 more.

Make a donation today and help us get the beds Hôpital Sacré Coeur badly needs.

Today I ask that you remember Haiti’s continuing recovery: please join us at our upcoming fundraising event in New York City this Friday or do your part today by making a secure, online donation right now.

Thank you for your support in helping us reach this vital goal, and on behalf of the patients and medical staff at the Hôpital Sacré Coeur, thank you for helping build a healthier Haiti for years to come.

35 more beds!

As mentioned in our last blog update, we are thrilled by the arrival of the first 35 beds to Hôpital Sacré Coeur and very happy to announce that we have received a second donation of 35 hospital beds from the very generous Bethanien Hospital.

Unlike our first shipment of beds from Germany to Haiti, that saw a freight container pass first from a shipping port in Düsseldorf to a port in Miami, and then unto port in Cap-Haïtien, our second shipment of beds are traveling directly to Haiti! With the help of the Dutch division of Mission & Relief Logistics, the 100 Beds for Haiti Campaign has arranged for door-to-door shipping of these 35 beds through Rotterdam. This process should help us navigate the complexities of freight forwarding through customs and bring the donation of beds to Cap Haïtien by the end of July or the beginning of August.

Freight containers at port in Rotterdam: can you spy our shipment?!

With 35 beds delivered and 35 more on their way, we are so close to reaching our goal of delivering 100 hospital beds to Haiti. In addition to our thankfulness to the Bethanien hospital and our friends in Germany, we are very grateful to all you generous donors that are making this possible. Stay tuned for an update as these beds make their way to Haiti!

First 35 Beds Arrive in Haiti!

Just a few short weeks ago, our first shipment of 35 beds to Hôpital Sacré Coeur (HSC) cleared customs in Cap Haitien and was delivered to the hospital in Milot. In his letter thanking 100 Beds for Haiti for campaigning, fundraising, and delivering the beds, HSC CFO Raymond Delnatus told us that "this donation was one of the most important shipments that we have received during the earthquake."


Certainly our efforts were the efforts of a campaign that has spread far and wide, receiving logistical and monetary support from all over the world! Yet, it has been almost six months since the deadly earthquake, and according to U.N. General Secretary Ban Ki Moon Haiti still has not received enough aid on the ground.

Speaking to a BBC News radio program out of Jamaica, Moon described that immediate humanitarian assistance is only being received at 60 percent of the initial pledged donations. While the 100 Beds for Haiti Campaign is proud of the donation we have made so far, we will not stop until our pledge of 100 beds to HSC are shipped and delivered!

Happily, we are within reach of our pledge! We've had a second donation of 35 hospitals beds from Krankenhaus Bethanien hospital in Moers, Germany and have secured a great shipping contract! This means we only need to secure a donation of 30 additional beds and to raise the funds to ship them there to meet our goal. We will post more on our second offer of 35 beds tomorrow, along with shipping details and dates and our plans to raise the funds for the remaining beds.

Writing us this morning, Dr. Peter J. Kelly, President of The CRUDEM Foundation and HSC, expressed his gratitude for these donations as well:

The 100 Beds for Haiti Campaign has been inspiring and life-changing!! The CRUDEM Foundation/Hopital Sacre Coeur is honored to be the recipient of the work of such talented and dedicated people who care so passionately for the well-being of our Haitian sisters and brothers! The addition of quality hospital beds aids in patient healing and enhances their overall quality of care. You have helped us in meeting our goal to create a healthier Haiti, one dignified life at a time! God bless you all!

Very touched by the letter of gratitude from Raymond Delnatus, we've included it below for you to read as well:

Dear Judith Kaine,

I am Raymond Delnatus the CFO of Hospital Sacre-Coeur, I hear that you are the Director of the effort to send the beds down for our Hospital. Long time ago I kept looking for the donor of those beds because this donation was one of the most important shipments that we have received during the earthquake. On behalf of the Hospital Administration and the patients I thank you for this important donation that we have ever received, and I do not know without those beds how the 598 victims and patients that we have received could have been treated.

May God bless you all and you can continue to help the Crudem Foundation and the Hospital to take care of the Haitian people.

Attached are some photos to show you how we used the bed for the patients at the Hospital.

Thanks again for all you are doing for our Hospital.

Ray Delnatus

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Awards Haitian NGO

At their annual conference on global health, The Global Health Council presented the prestigious Gates Award for Global Health to GHESKIO - Groupe Haïtien d’Étude du Sarcome de Kaposi et des Infectieuses Opportunistes, for its nearly three decades of work fighting AIDS and for its Herculean job in helping people survive after the devastating earthquake in January.

President Clinton, who visited GHESKIO while in Haiti earlier this year, described, "Despite the fact that its own headquarters were damaged, GHESKIO almost immediately began housing the homeless, treating the sick and injured, and returning HIV positive patients to their lifesaving medications. For these people, GHESKIO’s services and dedication meant the difference between life and death, health and infirmity, and hope and despair."



In it's 10th year, The Gates Award for Global Health was established by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to reward and exemplify organizations which have developed processes for improving health, especially in resource poor settings, with measurable results.

To learn more about the Global Health Council, the Gates Foundation Award or the annual conference on global health, please visit http://www.globalhealth.org/

Basics for Haiti at the Root of Humanity

The New York Times Editorial Board wrote an excellent piece on what basics Haiti needs to re-build from the earthquake, and turn itself around into a more stable nation. At the top of any "basic human rights" check list comes transparancy, equality, and equal protection under the law. Keeping women and children safe, and planning for more free and fair (and uncorrupted) elections will help to empower the Haiti people and allow for re-building to happen from the ground up with Haitians leading the charge. It is our responsibility as more prosperous and more powerful nation neighbors and throughout the global community to provide the tools either via infrastructure support, education, training, and material donations to help take away Haiti's crutches and allow it to stand as a nation on its own. Strong and solid healthcare infrastruce will alleviate many of the physical and mental barriers that will also help empower Haitians who are still recovering from January's devestating earthquake.

Donations Needed to Ship Another 35 Beds to HSC

According to Handicap International there were an estimated 800,000 disable people in Haiti before the earthquake and estimated 2,000 to 6,000 people were left with some kind of disability by the earthquake. In response to the growing number of disabled people, HSC built a new prosthetic lab, which is now up and functioning. As of June 6, HSC staff and doctors were able to fit its first 6 patients. Another 80 patients with amputations are waiting to be fit, and volunteer prosthetists continue to actively train the Haitian staff in their skill.

The 100 Beds for Haiti's first shipment of 35 beds from Germany have made their way to Miami, Florida, and will be headed to Haiti this week! And it also means that we've reached a little more than 1/3rd of our goal of sending 100 beds to Haiti. In this same light, we were recently informed that there are an additional 35 beds in Germany, which have been donated from a few hospitals. In order to get these beds from a warehouse in Germany to Milot, Haiti, we need more donations to cover the shipping costs. If you haven't had an opportunity to donate, please visit our website www.100bedsforhaiti.com to send us your donation today!

Dr. Peter Kelly, President of Crudem/ Hopital Sacre Coeur recently shared with us this story while working at HSC last month:

At the last nightly meeting before I left I was told of a volunteer who recruited other volunteers and patients to go to the ICU and fix the hair and clean a young woman with a cervical spine injury who is paralyzed from the neck down. This poor woman has been in our ICU waiting for spinal surgery to stabilize her spine so she can be moved to a rehabilitation facility. It took 5 volunteers to stabilize her while a fellow patient cleaned and braided her hair. Other volunteers cleaned her legs and feet and massaged them with lotion. When they were finished they were rewarded with a beautiful smile from the patient that lit up the whole room. It was her first smile since arriving!!

HSC continues to receive critical patients, and again, the need for beds--not cots or make-shift beds-- is overwhelming for overall patient recovery. Whether to make new amputee patients more comfortable in their recovery, or support patients in both pre-operation and post-operation, real and stable beds will is an important link towards overall physical and psychological recovery.

Report from the Ground: CBS News Reports on HSC

The CBS affiliate in Washington DC ran a story on two volunteer doctors, Dr. Jamie Freishtat and her husband, Dr. Rob Freishtat of Potomac, Maryland where they continued to provide emergency medical relief to earthquake victims and rehabilitation support to many amputee patients four months after the earthquake at HSC.

2010 Might Be the Worst Hurricane Season Yet

The Gulf received some extra bad news this week with predictions that the region will likely see 8 to 14 major hurricanes this year. Such a serious hurricane season poses a great threat to efforts in Haiti to rebuild after the January earthquake. Experts are concerned that a hurricane could create a secondary disaster and are urging Haitian and world leaders to take steps now to reduce risks and invest in disaster preparedness. By taking steps now to prepare for what is sure to be an above average hurricane season, experts believe Haiti can help keep this hurricane season from ending as tragically as the 2008 season. Haiti never fully recovered from the 2008 hurricane season which claimed over 800 lives. Years of deforestation, poor building codes, and the destruction caused by the January earthquake have left Haiti particularly vulnerable to hurricanes. Trees help stabilize soil and absorb rain water which is why Trees for the Future has been working to reforest much of Haiti since 2002.

As Haiti braces for what could be a record breaking hurricane season, Hôpital Sacré Coeur needs your help now more than ever. Please donate if you can!

The New York Daily News: Hurricane Season

The Tribute

World Bank Cancels Haiti's Debt

Haiti no longer has to repay $36 million so it can concentrate fully on their recovery efforts. This debt cancellation was made possible by contributions from Belgium, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.

CNN World Bank Cancels Haiti Debt