Waste Management Helps Marlins Build Homes for Haiti

I thought this press release from the Florida Marlins to be worth posting here. I would invite all to visit the Food for the Poor website (see right sidebar) for other such inspiring stories and ways to be part of the teams that are out there solving problems for the homeless and the hungry.

COCONUT CREEK, Fla. (Aug. 4, 2010) Moved by the ongoing crisis in Haiti, Waste Management has made a $50,000 donation to the Florida Marlins “Homes for Haiti” program to support the month-long campaign between the baseball team and Food For The Poor to build much-needed housing in Haiti.

Waste Management, which has more than 500 workers of Haitian descent in South Florida, rallied immediately after the Jan. 12 earthquake to raise $100,000 in emergency aid for Haiti. Now the company has joined the Marlins’ effort to build homes in a country where more than 1 million people have been displaced.

“We are extremely pleased to partner with Food For The Poor and the Marlins in this vital effort to bring housing and hope to those in great need,” said Dawn McCormick, Community Affairs Manager for Waste Management in South Florida. “It is gratifying to support our Haitian co-workers, many of whom lost family members in the earthquake, by participating in this effort that will put families into permanent homes and provide them with a safe and more secure future.”

The Waste Management donation will provide 10 two-room homes. Food For The Poor homes are permanent, sturdy concrete construction with rebar reinforcements, and strong corrugated zinc roofs. The charity is ramping up its capacity for building, and homes are going up in Pierre Payen, Trou Du Nord, Demier, Chastenoye, Delogner, Gros Chaudiere, Mahotiere, Leogane, and Grand Goave.

Marlins catcher John Baker, along with members of the Marlins’ front office traveled to Haiti on July 6 and 7 to see firsthand the destitute living conditions of families in Port-au-Prince, as well as in Cap-Haitien, where some of those fleeing the capital have moved.

“The trip to Haiti was an eye-opening experience; it was an awakening for me,” Baker said. “Most people don’t think of this kind of poverty being just an hour and a half by plane from Florida. Looking at pictures doesn’t do it justice. Until you have walked where they walk, and smelled what they smell, you really cannot understand.”


While the campaign started July 12 and runs for a month, the Marlins game on Aug. 22 will be sponsored by Waste Management, the leading provider of comprehensive waste and environmental services in North America. About 4,500 Waste Management employees and community partners will be there to see the check donation to Food For The Poor.

“We are grateful for the support of Waste Management on one of the most important projects we can do right now, which is to build homes,” said Angel Aloma, Executive Director of Food For The Poor.

To donate, go to foodforthepoor.org/homesforhaiti or text “Haiti” to 25383 and donate $10.

Food For The Poor, the largest international relief and development organization in the United States, does much more than feed millions of the hungry poor in 17 countries of the Caribbean and Latin America. This interdenominational Christian agency provides emergency relief assistance, clean water, medicines, educational materials, homes, support for orphans and the aged, skills training and micro-enterprise development assistance, with more than 96 percent of all donations going directly to programs that help the poor. For more information, please visit www.FoodForThePoor.org.

Contacts:
Kathy Skipper
Director of Public Relations
Food For The Poor
954.427.2222, ext. 6614
kathys@foodforthepoor.org

Carolina Perrina
Director, Business Communications
Florida Marlins, L.P.
305.626.7389
cperrina@marlins.com

Dawn McCormick
Community Affairs
Waste Management
954.226.9894
dmccormick@mw.com