The Biggest Deployment of ShelterBoxes in Four Years, Saving Lives One Box at a Time -- Emergency shelter for more than 20,000 people is now in Port au Prince and surrounding areas with small camps in Delmas, Petion-Ville, Carrefour and Leogane. More ShelterBoxes containing disaster relief tents and other life-saving
supplies are being sent to the Haiti in the next few days from Miami, Curucao and France with enough for an another 11,000 people.
“Nearly 100 tons of additional aid is being flown to Haiti this week as thousands of people who lost their homes in the devastating earthquake are being given the chance to start rebuilding their lives in ShelterBox tents” said Veronica Brandon Miller, Executive Director of ShelterBox USA.
“The need in Haiti is massive. Our team in Port au Prince is working with Dutch marines to ensure the safe and effective delivery of disaster relief tents and hundreds of these are already being used in four different locations,” John Leach, Head of Operations for ShelterBox. “Distribution of aid by our highly-trained ShelterBox Response Team members is underway but the need for emergency shelter
is still desperate.”
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.
Speaking from Bernard Mews Hospital in Freres, a suburb of Port au Prince, ShelterBox Response Team member Wayne Robinson (volunteer from Tennessee ) said, “Right outside the hospital there have been hundreds of people who have been laying in the sidewalks, on the streets and in blankets right on the ground in unbelievable conditions. They are bleeding, they have missing limbs and there are even women giving birth. We felt this was a good use of the initial boxes that we had here on the ground and we’ll be bringing more here and using them as a transitional point to get people out of the elements while they are waiting for treatment at the hospital.”
Public donations are vital to ShelterBox’s continuing work around the world. 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.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Monday, January 25, 2010
Governor-elect Prasad Menon planning for 2010-2011
The International Assembly, final training for all incoming district governors, has ended. Now, the DGEs are armed with their theme for 2010-2011 -- important as it helps the district and our clubs establish goals for the year.
Go to www.rotary.org to find out more about the theme, incoming Rotary International President Ray Klingensmith's goals, articulated in the theme, the Presidential Citation brochure, and many of the emphases at the International Assembly.
If you are a current club president or a president-elect, be sure you are signed up for pre-PETS, morning of Thursday, February 11th. There, you will find out more about the upcoming year and be inspired by Past Rotary International Vice-president, Mike McGovern, to achieve this year's goals and work on next year.
Go to www.rotary.org to find out more about the theme, incoming Rotary International President Ray Klingensmith's goals, articulated in the theme, the Presidential Citation brochure, and many of the emphases at the International Assembly.
If you are a current club president or a president-elect, be sure you are signed up for pre-PETS, morning of Thursday, February 11th. There, you will find out more about the upcoming year and be inspired by Past Rotary International Vice-president, Mike McGovern, to achieve this year's goals and work on next year.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Update from Haiti; witness to Boxing Day says, "worse than the tsunami."
ShelterBoxes are being packed around the clock. Hundreds of ShelterBoxes that were dispatched from the prepositioned stock in Curacao on Wednesday are due to touch down in Haiti late this afternoon, Haitian time. More ShelterBoxes are set to arrive in Port au Prince, Haiti later this week.
Since ShelterBox is the largest Rotary Club project in world – local Rotarians in Haiti have played a vital part in obtaining clearance for ShelterBox to land and get the life saving aid into the country.
ShelterBox Response Team (SRT) members David Eby (US), Wayne Robinson (US) and Mark Pearson (UK) have been in Port au Prince since Thursday and have been working nonstop assessing the most effective ways to distribute the much needed aid.
[To view a recent video of Wayne Robinson on the ground in Haiti, copy and paste this URL into your browser --
http://video.foxnews.com/v/3969588/shelter-boxes-distributed-in-haiti/?playlist_id=87249
PLEASE BE PATIENT. It takes a couple of minutes to download.]
A second Response Team, consisting of SRT members Mark Dyer (IL) and John Lacquey (FL) are in Miami, coordinating the ShelterBox logistical effort into Haiti from there. They will be joined later today by SRT member Ian Neal (UK) who will be traveling with the ShelterBoxes which are being shipped through Miami.
‘So much destruction’
SRT Mark Pearson, who was one of the first on the ground after the Indian Ocean Tsunami, said: “This is worse than the tsunami. It’s utter chaos at the airport. Buildings have been completely destroyed, the hospital has been destroyed. It’s a full scale emergency, there’s so much destruction.”
For those of you who like youtube videos, here is a short one from shelterboxusa.org
(copy the line below and paste into your browser).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s19-2PJWqqU
Since ShelterBox is the largest Rotary Club project in world – local Rotarians in Haiti have played a vital part in obtaining clearance for ShelterBox to land and get the life saving aid into the country.
ShelterBox Response Team (SRT) members David Eby (US), Wayne Robinson (US) and Mark Pearson (UK) have been in Port au Prince since Thursday and have been working nonstop assessing the most effective ways to distribute the much needed aid.
[To view a recent video of Wayne Robinson on the ground in Haiti, copy and paste this URL into your browser --
http://video.foxnews.com/v/3969588/shelter-boxes-distributed-in-haiti/?playlist_id=87249
PLEASE BE PATIENT. It takes a couple of minutes to download.]
A second Response Team, consisting of SRT members Mark Dyer (IL) and John Lacquey (FL) are in Miami, coordinating the ShelterBox logistical effort into Haiti from there. They will be joined later today by SRT member Ian Neal (UK) who will be traveling with the ShelterBoxes which are being shipped through Miami.
‘So much destruction’
SRT Mark Pearson, who was one of the first on the ground after the Indian Ocean Tsunami, said: “This is worse than the tsunami. It’s utter chaos at the airport. Buildings have been completely destroyed, the hospital has been destroyed. It’s a full scale emergency, there’s so much destruction.”
For those of you who like youtube videos, here is a short one from shelterboxusa.org
(copy the line below and paste into your browser).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s19-2PJWqqU
Friday, January 15, 2010
Haiti -- can you help?
Emergency disaster relief and shelter provision for more than 19,000 people is en route to earthquake-struck Haiti. Tens of thousands dead, even more left homeless and scenes of chaos; this is the picture coming out of the Caribbean island of Haiti.
If you want to help, first go to www.shelterboxusa.org and www.shelterbox.org find out for yourself, what is being done and what you can do.
In District 7890, a fund has been established to support sending both medical supplies and shelter -- the most immediate needs. Ask your club president for details.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
First Full Week of 2010
Rang out the old year, hopefully with some end-of-year contributions to our Rotary Foundation, and now the new is underway.
For those of us in the District Governor "track," governor-elect Prasad Menon, myself, the governor-nominee, and governor-nominee-designee Eileen Rau, the focus was a day in Nashua, NH, where we joined others on the Northeast Multidistrict Presidents-elect Training Seminar (NE PETS) Planning Committee, meeting with leaders around New England who have agreed to help train this year's class of incoming presidents. For our district, and the other seven districts we join, leadership training is a major task, but something Rotary takes very seriously.
Prasad and his wife, Sree, will be heading to San Diego third week of this month for a final training session for incoming governors before he embarks on training his presidents. That process begins with pre-PETS the morning of Thursday, February 11th. Attending is an absolute must for incoming presidents who will meet with Prasad and current presidents who will have their mid-year meeting with Governor Herb.
If you have not registered for this, you can find the form via a link from the district website --
http://www.rotarydistrict7890.org/docs/2010-Pre-Pets-PresMtg.pdf
So, back to the week -- hopefully, yours began with a great club meeting. Our club welcomed Rotarian Steve Bates, a member of East Hartford and an accountant, to alert us to significant tax changes affecting all of us this year. Excellent program for a business group. If you do not do something akin to this, talk to your program chair. It's not a yawner!
After working on some bylaws proposals with DGE Prasad (you'll hear more about those in the next few months), I prepared for a meeting of the Northeast Link Committee today (Sunday). Did you know we have a multidistrict group which helps Rotary-Foundation-supported scholars as well as Group Study Exchange (GSE) teams know more about Rotary before they embark on a month or year abroad. It's a very critical training program, and one which will increase in importance as we adapt to some changes being made over the new few years by The Rotary Foundation.
It is very important if any of you are Foundation alums (former scholars, GSE team members) that you attend these meetings; share your experiences with folks who are heading out in the next few months.
To read more about Northeast Link and the days when you can participate in these events, go to
http://www.northeastlink.org/
If you know you want to attend the meeting for the GSE teams, especially if you are an alum of a team and can share your experiences, please go directly to the online registration
http://www.northeastlink.org/html/nel_rotreg_2.shtml
So, it's been a busy week. Business, since I am not retired, actually must be tended, but my being self-employed has helped meet the demands of the Rotary world. A great world!
For those of us in the District Governor "track," governor-elect Prasad Menon, myself, the governor-nominee, and governor-nominee-designee Eileen Rau, the focus was a day in Nashua, NH, where we joined others on the Northeast Multidistrict Presidents-elect Training Seminar (NE PETS) Planning Committee, meeting with leaders around New England who have agreed to help train this year's class of incoming presidents. For our district, and the other seven districts we join, leadership training is a major task, but something Rotary takes very seriously.
Prasad and his wife, Sree, will be heading to San Diego third week of this month for a final training session for incoming governors before he embarks on training his presidents. That process begins with pre-PETS the morning of Thursday, February 11th. Attending is an absolute must for incoming presidents who will meet with Prasad and current presidents who will have their mid-year meeting with Governor Herb.
If you have not registered for this, you can find the form via a link from the district website --
http://www.rotarydistrict7890.org/docs/2010-Pre-Pets-PresMtg.pdf
So, back to the week -- hopefully, yours began with a great club meeting. Our club welcomed Rotarian Steve Bates, a member of East Hartford and an accountant, to alert us to significant tax changes affecting all of us this year. Excellent program for a business group. If you do not do something akin to this, talk to your program chair. It's not a yawner!
After working on some bylaws proposals with DGE Prasad (you'll hear more about those in the next few months), I prepared for a meeting of the Northeast Link Committee today (Sunday). Did you know we have a multidistrict group which helps Rotary-Foundation-supported scholars as well as Group Study Exchange (GSE) teams know more about Rotary before they embark on a month or year abroad. It's a very critical training program, and one which will increase in importance as we adapt to some changes being made over the new few years by The Rotary Foundation.
It is very important if any of you are Foundation alums (former scholars, GSE team members) that you attend these meetings; share your experiences with folks who are heading out in the next few months.
To read more about Northeast Link and the days when you can participate in these events, go to
http://www.northeastlink.org/
If you know you want to attend the meeting for the GSE teams, especially if you are an alum of a team and can share your experiences, please go directly to the online registration
http://www.northeastlink.org/html/nel_rotreg_2.shtml
So, it's been a busy week. Business, since I am not retired, actually must be tended, but my being self-employed has helped meet the demands of the Rotary world. A great world!
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