Local Rotarians Help Dispatch Tents to Haiti

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In less than 30 minutes last week, Steamboat Springs Rotarians collected more than $6,000 to purchase and dispatch tents and supplies to earthquake-ravaged Haiti through a unique Rotary program called ShelterBox.  Fellow Rotarians in Wyoming and northern Colorado raised another $60,000 in the past several days for ShelterBox purchases.

SRT (ShelterBox Response Team) offload ShelterBoxes from French Red Cross IL 76 Aircraft at PAP airport in Port Au Prince, Monday, 18th January 2010 (Picture by Mark Pearson)

As of Monday, January 25^th, Rotary ShelterBoxes are already providing emergency shelter for more than 20,000 people in Port au Prince and surrounding areas. Hundreds more ShelterBoxes containing disaster relief tents and other life-saving supplies are being sent to the city in the next few days from Miami, Curacao and France.

“Our local Rotarian family responded immediately when we learned that our dollars would be applied almost immediately to helping the homeless in Haiti,” Rotary presidents Kevin Kaminski and Suzanne Schlicht said.

Each ShelterBox costs $1,000 and supplies an extended family of up to 10 people with a tent and lifesaving equipment to use while they are displaced or homeless… Highly trained ShelterBox Response Teams distribute boxes on the ground, working closely with local organizations, international aid agencies and Rotary clubs worldwide.

On Friday January 29^th, ShelterBox is chartering a 747 aircraft with 1,800 boxes to fly from Stansted Airport to the Dominican Republic where they will be taken overland to neighboring Haiti. It is the second flight chartered by the international disaster relief charity for the Haiti response after a plane loaded with 700 ShelterBoxes and 100 tents flew out of England last week.

A number of ShelterBoxes have also been used at an orphanage and at two hospitals in Port au Prince where tents are being erected to help save lives.

ShelterBox’s Founder and CEO Tom Henderson said: ‘In terms of logistics, the aid operation in Haiti has been ShelterBox’s most challenging in the last decade, with only one airport on the island which has been shut until recently and the port shut as well.

“As food, water and medicines are now starting to get in; the focus now is fulfilling the urgent need for emergency shelter.”

To add to the logistical problems of delivering aid in Haiti, the airfield has only been operating during daylight hours and there has been a shortage of aviation fuel.

Public donations are vital to ShelterBox’s continuing work around the world according to local Rotarians… To make a donation go to www.shelterboxusa.org to donate online and get the latest updates on the charity’s response to the Haiti earthquake.