Stuff about me
My name is Keith Michaud and this is “Letters From Away,” a blog written by a Mainer living outside the comfortable and sane confines of New England. The blog is intended for Mainers, whether they live in the Pine Tree State or beyond, and for anyone who has loved ’em, been baffled by ’em or both. Ayuh, I am “from away.” Worse still, I live on the Left Coast – in California. Enjoy! Or not. Your choice.
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Tag Archives: Haiti
Maine Catholics raise $424,000 for Haiti
Maine singer’s Valentine’s video to benefit Haiti
Tagged aid, donation, earthquake, Haiti, Haitian, relief, Valentine's Day, YouTube
Church congregation assembles hygiene kits for Haitians
Tagged aid, church, earthquake, Haiti, Haitians, hygiene kits, relief
Calais surgeon offers services in Haiti
CALAIS, Maine — Dr. Robert Chagrasulis, a trauma surgeon in Calais, was in the first wave of international health clinicians to make their way to the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince after the devastating earthquake of Jan. 12.
In a recent telephone interview, Chagrasulis recalled the five days he spent with a clinical team treating dazed survivors of the quake at an open-air clinic on a soccer field in the ruined city.
“We set up under some trees,” he said. Survivors came in droves, seeking help for untreated fractures, festering infections, respiratory complaints, and aches and pains related to injuries they had suffered in the collapse of the city. Many people also had psychological symptoms — fear, grief, sleeplessness.
Click this link to the rest of today’s story by Meg Haskell of the Bangor Daily News.
Children welcomed home
PITTSFIELD — “I love that everybody loves them so much already.”
Amanda Logiodice said this Sunday afternoon as she and her husband, Jediah, marveled at the scene inside the local Elks Lodge: About 50 people came together with food, gifts and well wishes for the Logiodices’ two newest family members.
David, 1, and Christella, 5, came from the His Home for Children orphanage in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and are now the family’s adopted children. They join the Logiodices’ three biological children: Donavan, 8, Braeden, 5, and Bella, 4.
In the aftermath of the massive earthquake there, the Logiodices were able to secure an emergency evacuation of the two children to the U.S., flying down to Miami a little over a week ago and returning home here on Wednesday. They had started the adoption process more than a year ago.
Sunday’s public celebration was organized by members of the First Baptist Church, of which the Logiodices are members, and the Elks donated their space for the occasion. Church member Liana Walker, of Troy, said the event was meant to show support and to welcome to two Haitian children into the community.
Walker said it’s remarkable the adoption worked out as it did, given the chaotic aftermath of the earthquake. Church families had already rallied community support for the Logiodices, sending them supplies and assistance so they could make the trip to Miami.
“It’s awesome; it’s truly a miracle they could get the children out,” Walker said.
Click on the link to the rest of today’s story by Scott Monroe in the Kennebec Journal.
Lewiston pastors tour Haiti
They drove the streets of Port-au-Prince, past rows of collapsed buildings and rescue teams. On one pancaked structure that used to be four or five stories high, a man stood alone on the tall pile of rubble with a hack saw, cutting away at rebar.
Maybe someone was still inside. Maybe everything he owned was in there.
“It was a bit surreal,” said Phil Strout, a pastor at Pathway Vineyard Church in Lewiston. “You see the pain, and then you see the human spirit and willingness to help.”
Strout and fellow pastor Allen Austin traveled to the Dominican Republic on Jan. 17 to offer support to Vineyard churches and toured neighboring Haiti seven days after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck near the capital of Port-au-Prince. Austin got home last weekend; Strout returned Wednesday night, after a stop in Miami. One takeaway that they’ve reported back to national church leadership: The devastation is 10 times worse than it looks on TV.
Click this link to read the rest of this story by Kathryn Skelton of the Lewiston Sun Journal.
After quake, Winthrop family grows quickly
An expedited adoption process
adds to the brood at
Richard and Carlyn Lenfestey’s home
WINTHROP — Reginald knelt on one of the three light-colored toddler beds lined up near the foot of his parents’ bed.
This one is Richard’s. This one is Sasia’s. This one is Reggie’s.
Though he just turned 3 in December, Reginald clearly relishes his new role of big brother.
On Friday, Richard, 2, and Sasia, 20 months, clung to mom Carlyn Lenfestey, who sat on her bed.
“It’s kind of like the romper room,” she said.
Dad, Matt Lenfestey, surveyed the room and his newly enlarged family, occasionally addressing the children in their native Creole language.
Up until Tuesday, Richard and Sasia lived in a creche, a home for orphans in Lagosette, on Haiti’s north coast.
The Lenfesteys adopted Reginald from the same creche and brought him home to Winthrop last June. Soon thereafter, they started the process of adopting Sasia and Richard.
Click on the link for the rest of the story by Betty Addams in today’s Kennebec Journal.
Haitian children adjusting to a whole new life in Maine
Pittsfield couple says becoming
adopted parents is not too different
from births of their biological children
PITTSFIELD, Maine — The Logiodice household, with its five children, is about what you’d expect.
The four oldest — Donovan, 8, Braeden, 5, Christella, 5, and Bella, 4 — jump around and screech as they collaborate to keep half-deflated balloons off the floor. They knock a picture off the wall and Mom steps in.
“All right, guys, calm down,” says Amanda Logiodice patiently, shooing the balloons into a bedroom. A few minutes later Donovan and Braeden are at it again. “If you don’t stop I’m going to take this balloon outside and let it go,” says Mom, more firmly this time.
“Noooo!” cries Bella.
The girls are dressed in princess costumes; the boys pile a few dozen stuffed animals on the living room floor. One-year-old Jediah Junior toddles around in a constant quest to be held. Once held, even by a stranger, his kisses are free and plentiful.
But what seems like a common scene is not. Three of the siblings just met the other two on Wednesday. A week ago, Christella and Jediah Junior were in southern Haiti, where their orphanage crumbled around them in the terrible earthquake that struck on Jan. 12. They ate rationed meals of rice and water only twice a day. They lived among human corpses and all the other tragedy that is life today in southern Haiti.
Click on the link for the rest of the story by Christopher Cousins of the Bangor Daily News.
Tagged adoption, aid, earthquake, Haiti, Haitians, ophans, Pittsfield Maine, relief
Shock lingers as Haiti recovers
“TV doesn’t do justice to how
widespread the damage is,”
Maine’s Coast Guard commander says
Before he left for Haiti, Capt. James McPherson of Kittery was given a little toy shark by his 5-year-old son, Connor.
McPherson, commanding officer of Coast Guard Sector Northern New England in Portland and South Portland, gave the shark to a 4-year-old boy near the American embassy in Port-au-Prince. The little boy, covered with dust from the ruined city, plays with the toy all day.
McPherson is amazed at how well the children of Port-au-Prince are rebounding from the earthquake that destroyed their city.
“They’re just completely resilient. But it makes you wonder – what’s his future, what’s going to happen from here?” said McPherson.
Click on this link for the rest of today’s story by Matt Wickenheiser of the Portland Press Herald.
Tagged aid, Capt. James McPherson, children, earthquake, Haiti, Kittery, Port-au-Prince, relief, U.S. Coast Guard
15 Maine schools join effort to raise funds for Haiti
By Roxanne Moore Saucier
Bangor Daily News, January 29, 2010
BANGOR, Maine — Fifteen schools around the state have signed up to partner with the Galen L. Cole Disaster Relief Program to raise funds to help victims of the earthquake in Haiti.
The schools were among the 29 that last week were invited to join in the project because they have been most active in bringing students to Cole Land Transportation Museum to visit the museum and interview veterans through the Ambassadors of Patriotism program.
Galen Cole, founder of the museum and the Cole Family Foundation, said Thursday he was thrilled to have the schools agree to raise money for Haitian relief. The Cole Disaster Relief Program will match what each school raises, up to $2,500 per school.
Cole, who was wounded and saw five of his fellow servicemen killed while in the U.S. Army in Europe, expressed compassion for what the Haitians have suffered, especially the children.
“What those kids are going through down there,” he said Thursday, “is far more severe than what I went through in World War II. If I’d lost my entire family and been 6 years old — think of it.”
Click on this link for the rest of this story.
Breakwater kids launch Haiti relief site
Wells Rotary gives ‘ShelterBoxes’ to Haiti
Tagged aid, donation, earthquake, Haiti, relief, Rotary International, ShelterBoxes, Wells
MaineBusiness.com | Financial Sense: Haiti Donations Immediately Deductible
Tagged aid, deductible, deductions, donations, earthquake, Haiti, income tax, Jeff Bogue, MaineBusiness.com, relief
JL Coombs collects shoes for Haiti
First Friday event benefits Haiti project
Tagged aid, benefit, earthquake, First Friday, Haiti, relief
Haiti dispatches | Portland Press Herald
Vessel fills up with donations to benefit quake-struck Haiti | Portland Press Herald
Former resident expands services in Haiti to house 100 children orphaned by earthquake
Here’s the top of a story in the Lewiston Sun Journal about a former Lewiston, Maine, resident who was helping orphaned Haitian children. A link to the rest of the story is below.
Again, there was no byline attached to the story or I would have included that information.
The Rev. Marc Boisvert was already making an impact in Haiti before the earthquake felt around the world rocked the small island south of Cuba.
On Tuesday, the former Lewiston resident’s impact grew deeper when his orphanage, known as Project Hope, announced that the facility would take in another 100 children orphaned as a result of the nation’s deadliest natural disaster in history.
“With our staff of 250 and over 140 acres, we have the capacity to handle the extra children left helpless because of this devastation,” Boisvert said in a press release issued Tuesday by Free the Kids, a stateside nonprofit organization that helps raise money for the Les Cayes orphanage.
Click here for the rest of the story.
For more information: www.freethekids.org.
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