Building a Dream on a Garbage Dump

written by Jim Turnbull

On a garbage dump/landfill site in Northern Haiti, there is an orphanage where 43 Haitien children live. The picture of the little boy below this paragraph is typical of the youngsters who have been given a new chance in life in the Stella House orphanage. Their home was built from funds raised by the Hamilton based Joy and Hope of Haiti as part of its ongoing program to help the children of that impoverished country. The very fact that this facility was ever built is a miracle in itself.

Pastor Emmanuel Eugene was a Haitien pastor who decided to return to his home country to plant a church in Cap Haitien. He had been away from Haiti studying in the United States and reluctantly returned to the poorest country in the western hemisphere, uncertain of his future. After visiting the landfill site in Cap Haitien where the children were living in the most deplorable conditions imaginable, he knew that was where he had to start his ministry. When he heard that a group of Canadians from Hamilton were in the vicinity, he insisted on meeting with them to try to get their help. Dr. John Holmes, a Burlington physician, was one of the group he approached. Holmes laughs today when he recalls his first visit to the site where Pastor "Mano" had started construction of his church/school. "We could not believe the conditions", recalls Holmes. There was no sewage system, no running water, no vegetation because it was essentially a landfill site filled with garbage and the homes were just shacks with leaking roofs. I could not imagine that 50,000 people were living in such conditions. We knew right then that we had to do something about it."

And the Joy and Hope of Haiti did do something about it! From 1999 to 2001, they raised funds to build a school and church for the neighbourhood. In 2002, construction commenced on the orphanage that was completed in 2004. Then, because there was no place in the community for the children to play, a basketball and volleyball court was built next to the orphanage. Though far from perfect, this little community had been transformed by the generosity and efforts of hundreds of Hamiltonians.

The next Live and Silent Auction and dinner will be held Thursday May 31, 2007 at 6:00 p.m. at Carmen's Banquet site, 1520 Stonechurch Road East, Hamilton, which is the largest such dinner and auction held in Hamilton each year. Over six hundred people attend this event and it's just a wonderful evening of fun and excitement with all the proceeds going to projects in Haiti.