When we were in Jacmel, we helped build at the orphanage construction site, met and played with kids at an art school, and helped build a dental clinic. It was transformative, and had an incredible impact on my personal, artistic, and professional life.

On the news, you see so much despair, homelessness, and poverty. The reality of what I found on the ground was so much broader, though: happiness, joy, determination, and hope were found aplenty in the children and adults alike, and it made each of us want to do everything we can to support them.

I want to help finish that community centre and provide a home for children like Stephen, the first resident (pictured below). Stephen is 14 months old and was tied to the leg of a table almost all of his life so that his caretaker could go to work. Finally, they realized they couldn’t provide for him and brought them to Bonite Affriany, who took him in. It took days to even get him to smile.

Bonite Affriany, a community leader in Jacmel, is sometimes called the Mother Teresa of the city. She feeds over 275 kids every single day, educates them, and cares for them. Some of these kids walk for an hour each way to get that one meal per day. Unfortunately, she doesn’t have the space or facilities to give them all a place to sleep. The kids have to sleep in tent cities often ravaged by disease, crime, and desperate poverty.

That’s where we come in. Together, we can help build a community centre adjacent to Bonite’s lunch/classroom building where the kids can sleep, eat, go to class, and learn faith and love together. The building will include sleeping space for at least a hundred children, communal washrooms, kitchen and dining areas, classrooms on a newly-added second floor, multipurpose rooms for education and community use, solar panels on the roof to keep the building as green as possible, a playground, a fish pond to provide the kids with protein-filled meals, and even a community lending centre.

I fell in love with so many of these kids. They have open hearts, joy-filled spirits, and so much love to give to everyone around them. They immediately invited us to play, and I rediscovered childhood through their eyes last June.

That’s why I want to help with everything I have, as a “creative type” without any practical construction experience and with limited professional networks.

The team will visit Jacmel between June 14th and 22nd this year (we’ll spend nine days there). Based on my experiences there, I intend to create some heart-filled artistic works which will be your perks for helping.

What I’ll Give You… (other than my undying love)

I’m covering my own expenses for vaccinations, airline tickets, hotels, food, bottled water, medicine, etc. All money raised through this campaign will go directly to the Haiti project! I need to fundraise another $2,500. I have a donation-matching program in place so your donations are matched $1 for $1, so this number is actually just $1,250!

I want to give back to the wonderful people supporting me by providing some pretty awesome rewards — creative works, delicious food, and home decor are a few possibilities of things you could get out of this (along with your donation being tax-deductible!).

Everything stacks — for example, donate $50 and you get the $20 and $10 rewards, too! Also, you don’t have to donate all at once. As long as the same name is on your donation both times, I’ll keep track of when you qualify for an even better reward. :)

• Donate $10 and get a thanks via social media and an email with pictures and stories from the trip.
• Donate $20 and get a mailed postcard of a photo from the trip.
• Donate $35 and get a handwritten mixed-media art piece from me, including a poem written just for you and doodles or notes in the margins or whatever else fits the poem to fill the rest of the page!
• Donate $50 and get a physical copy of the commemorative H2H2 book, which will include a copy of the diary I’m keeping during the trip, poetry, pictures, and a handwritten thanks to you in the front cover.
• Donate $100 and get a delicious, organic, local-sourced home-cooked meal anytime this year when it’s convenient for us both (if you’re in the Halifax area) or a mailed box of cookies, baked treats, and snacks (if you’re anywhere in the world!).
• Donate $150 and get two small art pieces made by the kids and brought back after my trip.
• Donate $250 and get a set of six postcards made from photos of the trip, and a medium art piece from the kids.
• Donate $500 and get a donation in your name of stickers, school supplies, or sports equipment for every kid in the projects we’re supporting, pictures of the donation being handed over, and a poem written especially for you in the commemorative book, along with a thanks to you in it.
• If you’d like to donate $1,000 or more, contact me and we can work out a personalized reward!

A successful fundraising campaign will help transform the lives of the 100 kids who will eventually live at the Jacmel Children’s Centre. The seismically stable, eco-efficient, self-sufficient orphanage will produce electricity from solar panels, grow gardens, feed kids from a fish pond, and have its own water well (which was just drilled!). Kids aged under a year to eight years old will have a home and “House Moms” who will live with them to raise them. They’ll have a safe place to sleep, education, and opportunities to thrive.

I’m also going to get a tremendous amount out of this trip. The compassion, joy, sense of play, and passion for life that I learned last June influence my life every day, and I expect to be transformed all over again this June. We’re going to build not only the children’s centre, but also a house for a family with kids at the art school (right now, they sleep on the ground in a tarpaulin), and we’ll visit the market.

I worked my butt off last year on the building sites and surprised the team with how much I can do. This year, I’m putting my mind to it and I’m determined to do even more! I can’t wait to get my hands dirty again, and your support ensures that I get to build, the kids get a home, and the world is that much brighter. Even the smallest donation is appreciated by the community leaders, the kids, Random Acts, and by me!

Other Ways You Can Help: 

Please share this campaign on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, by email, or any other way you can. Even if you get one friend to sign up, you’ve just earned a bazillion karma points, and if you and your friend both send me a message to let me know you got a friend to help, you’ll each get a special something from Haiti!

To donate, you have two options.

1. You can go here and click on the big “Donate” button to give via credit card (simplest).

2. You can also go here and scroll down to the “Pony Up!” button to donate via Paypal. If you donate by Paypal, make sure you put the name Zabrina Way in the Notes field along with this URL (you can copy and paste): http://www.crowdrise.com/HopetoHaiti2012/fundraiser/AbbyW

Before long, you’ll find your name on this list of esteemed friends and supporters of Hope 2 Haiti!