Verona Helps Haitian Schools

By Inie Platenius

Joan Goodwin, Pietro Cutrona, Linda Bates, Kevin Ryan, Bob Leggett, Lisa Woods

A special huge Huzzah to Linda Bates, her husband Don and all the people who pitched in to donate and work on Linda's drive to donate school supplies to a school in Haiti.

Linda is on the world council of the International Scout and Guide Fellowship, and last July at a meeting in New York City she learned of the desperate plight of schools in northern Haiti from Haitian members of the fellowship. Some of the children are malnourished, and the schools are dilapidated and lack basic supplies.

Linda decided then and there she was going to help out and with a will and energy that never quits, she got the Limestone School Board and International Scout and Guide Fellowship involved, as well as dozens of people and businesses from Verona to Amherst Island and beyond.

Linda works as an educational assistant at Sydenham High School, and with the board's blessing, a call went out to all the schools for French resources, as French and Creole are spoken in Haiti.

Linda started in September and was able to collect over $37,000 of books, games, puzzles, flashlights, and other supplies for children whose school does not even own pencils. She got ready to have them driven at the end of November to New York City, where space had been arranged on cargo ships.

But hurricanes hit Haiti this fall, which meant the cargo ships bound for the island had to head out with aid - leaving several weeks earlier than Linda had scheduled. So at the Bates household there was a flurry of inventorying and packing and last weekend, Linda and Marcel Quenneville drove the chase car while Bob Leggett and Kevin Ryan drove the borrowed cube van (from Harry Kerr's Flooring in Loughborough) loaded with 127 boxes of stuff to deliver to the Haitian/American community in NYC.

There they were greeted with tears of joy and warm hospitality - billeted by scouting people and fed by the Haitian/Americans. Now, 1,755 km. later, Linda is enjoying a brief respite before the final piece of her work - a flight to Haiti in February to help distribute the supplies to not one, but four schools in rural Haiti. The expenses of that trip will be personally borne by Linda and any others who go down to help. Bravo to all the individuals and businesses who donated supplies and gas money to the first part of this saga.

Anyone who would like to donate can contact Linda and Don at 613-374-1307; goodwolf@sympatico.ca. Cheque donations must be made out to: 35th. B-P Guild