I'm Available to Talk to Schools, Churchs, Service Groups

Today I spoke to Ms. Bridi's 6th grade class at New Brighton Middle School. I was invited by my friend Juli Rivera, who made hundreds of cool buttons to help raise funds for Andre's family in Haiti. Juli has already raised $28.

I brought in lots of photos of Haiti and Andre's family to show the kids and passed around some Haitian art. I told them a little about the history of Haiti, how Andre and I met, and what's happened to his family since the earthquake. I was surprised when one girl raised her hand and said it was the same for her family, because as far as we know, Andre is the only Haitian in Santa Cruz.

Turns out, the girl's aunt married a Haitian man and lives in Petionville, a fancy suburb outside Port-au-Prince. They came to California for the winter break and had just gone back to Haiti a week before the earthquake hit. This girl's family couldn't get in touch with her aunt for three days, just like us. And like Andre's family, their relatives fortunately survived, but their house is so badly damaged that they're camping outside too.

Another girl asked if there are stores where the people can buy food and water or are they just living off relief aid. I was really glad she asked that because from what I've heard, very little relief is getting to the people. Andre's family is able to buy food from vendors who are coming in from the countryside, but they're charging two to three times the normal price for rice, beans and vegetables. One time Andre's family lined up at a relief station a half mile from their house. But it took all day, and they had to fight just to get a bottle of water and some cookies. They're lucky that we can send them money (fee free through Western Union right now) so they can buy food.

I passed out the fliers about Action Santa Cruz and how to donate to Andre's family. One boy said his dad could probably donate an oil change to our silent auction. Now there's something that EVERYBODY needs. Soon I will post the enormous list of wonderful auction items we have for our first fundraiser on Feb. 21 from 4:00-7:00 at Minorsan Martial Arts studio. It's a potluck dinner, silent auction, music and dancing.

The funniest comment I got from the kids was when one of them said he'd heard that only half of the donations to the tsunami victims ever got to the people. I asked the class where they thought the rest of the money went. One guy said, "Space Aliens."

You never know....