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

Guyanese Village Built by Dog Biscuits

The following story was originally published in Florida Catholic and re-printed on the website, Food for the Poor. The Food for the Poor organization is dedicated to helping the poor in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Joe and Judy Roetheli of Kansas City, Mo., made their fortune with a treat that cleans dogs’ teeth, and now the Catholic couple are using the fruits of their labor to house and feed those in need in far–off lands.

“We’ve been fortunate to have been successful and to have made the kind of money we’ve made,” said Joe Roetheli, 61, a parishioner of Holy Family Catholic Church in Kansas City. “There is only so much that we need and God wants us to do something righteous with our good fortune.”

Last October the Roethelis answered that call from God, partnered with the Florida–based Food for the Poor international nonprofit relief agency, and broke ground on the Lil’ Red Village, a 100–house development in Guyana, the only English–speaking nation in South America.

Their $800,000 contribution allowed Food for the Poor to build enough houses to shelter up to 600 people in the village and provide them with sanitation facilities, a community center, a school, several retail shops, a water tower, electric service and a 5–acre community garden to grow food.

Their path to building a village for the poor in Guyana began with their Catholic faith — and an intervention from two priests, one from Ohio and the other from New York, Joe Roetheli told Catholic News Service. But, their means to be able to give so generously began much earlier, with an idea for a business and staggering achievement.

Roetheli was a federal government employee and his wife was a high school teacher in 1996, the year they invented “Greenies,” a dog treat that cleans the teeth of canines and freshens their breath.
By 2003 they had sold hundreds of millions of the dog treats, allowing them to form the Roetheli Lil’ Red Foundation, a charitable organization to help those in need. “Judy and I have always believed that it is important to give back, whether it is to your local community or to the world as a whole,” Roetheli said.

Their foundation funds a pet visitation program in nursing homes, mostly in rural Missouri; helps finance documentaries and books; and with their involvement in the Guyana project it now has branched into building stable villages for the poor in developing nations.

The Roethelis got the idea of joining forces with a relief organization to build a village when a substitute priest came to their church and discussed the great need in third world nations like Guyana. Shortly afterward, another visiting priest from New York told them about Food for the Poor and the work it was doing to help feed and house those in need in the Caribbean and Latin America.
“I almost see it as divine intervention twice,” Roetheli said. “Both times we heard things that we needed to hear.”

Initially, the couple had decided to develop their village in Jamaica, but after a year of trying unsuccessfully to get through government red tape in order to build, they moved the project to Guyana and broke ground on the Lil’ Red Village in October 2008.

“The Roethelis are amazing people and so generous with their talents, time, energy and money,” said Angel A. Aloma, executive director of Food for the Poor, during an interview with CNS. “They are a great example of altruism. They have taken the rewards of their labor and used it to help those in need.” Last March –– when the project was about 75 percent complete –– the Roethelis made their first trip to Guyana to attend the dedication ceremony of the village they helped build. “We were taken aback at the extreme poverty in that country, and even though the houses we built are not the kind of houses Americans would live in, it’s such an improvement from what they had,” Roetheli said. Though he’d like to build another village soon, he said his foundation will have to recover from the financial hit it took when the stock market nose–dived in late 2008.

“We’ve got to weather the storm financially,” Roetheli said. “We took a monstrous hit. But, we’ll get there. I’m confident of that.”

For more stories of how Food for the Poor has been helping poor people in the southern hemisphere, visit the organization's website by clicking here.

Food Banks in Crisis

"Be a hunger hero," says a food bank in Michigan.

The following information was brought to my attention by Lynn (Life According to the Wall Street Redneck's Wife) from Michigan. Gleaner's Food Bank needs your help! Michigan, especially the Flint and Detroit areas have been hit very hard by the tough economy and the break down of the automobile industry. Michigan is suffering from the highest rates of unemployment in the USA. This rise in the unemployment rate, which has yet according to ABC News this morning to peak, has caused a rise in the number of families needing help with basic necessities such as food and housing.

Just last week, at the Bible Studies class I attend, one of the participants, Tom, who assists at a food bank in Hollister, California (yes, unfortunately, the home town of the recent Pentagon shooter), told of the difficult situation there, with significant shortfalls in contributions and the need to allocate a maximum number of times per week that individuals or families can come in to receive help. In fact, some of the people who used to contribute are now people in need of contributions as a result of last year's immense bust in California's housing market, a bust similar to that across the USA but with seemingly greater consequences, considering that California has, in general, the highest housing prices in the country, both for owning and for renting. So, renting has become a problem for those who have lost their homes.

Given these two distant-from-each-other food banks in crisis, I would imagine that any city anywhere in this country has food banks in similar situations. If you are in a position to help, it would seem that there is no better time than now.

Save a Fish, Save a Person

From Footsteps, the monthly publication of the Juniperro Serra chapter of the Secular Franciscan Order (SFO), with thanks to the editor and the Garcias for permission to re-publish:

Save a fish; save a person. That’s what Herman Garcia, founder and President of the nonprofit organization, Coastal Habitat Education & Environmental Restoration (CHEER) in Gilroy, California is doing. Herman, brother of our own Benny Garcia, is a local businessman in Gilroy and an avid outdoorsman. He saw a need to save the steelhead trout in the 1300 square mile Pajaro River Watershed, an area encompassing Santa Clara, San Benito, Santa Cruz and Monterey counties, so set about to do something. In 1997, Coastal California Steelhead were listed as a threatened species under the Federal Endangered Species Act. Because their freshwater habitat is disappearing, the steelhead population in Central California has fallen dramatically. Their numbers are an indicator of the overall health of the watershed, the quality of the water we consume, and the environmental health of Monterey Bay.

But this story is more than about saving fish and preserving the watershed; it’s also about saving people. As part of CHEER’s work, volunteers rescue steelhead from May through October. The remainder of the year they work to restore the streams and creeks where the fish spawn. This restoration includes a large amount of trash removal. Much of this trash, CHEER discovered, was left by a large population of homeless individuals who camp in the watershed.

Instead of looking for ways to eliminate the homeless camps along the creeks and streams, CHEER found a better solution—they engaged and empowered the homeless to be a solution to the problem instead of a cause. Herman believes that the homeless situation in the watershed is a social, political, environmental and public safety issue. Such a multi-dimensional problem requires out-of-the box thinking. So, three to four times a year, Herman and his CHEER volunteers trek into the backcountry of the watershed with food and provisions for the homeless. They provide each homeless volunteer with a hot meal and two weeks of food. In addition each person receives a pair of work gloves, long handled grippers for picking up trash, a supply of garbage bags, and a dose of education about how to care for and restore the habitat. The homeless volunteers later meet with Herman at a designated pickup area where they turn in the full garbage bags in exchange for another two weeks of food provisions. The number of homeless volunteers has grown from 12 to over 70 in just the past six months, taxing the resources of this infant organization to provide the food needed for their mission. Currently all food is purchased with money donated by CHEER volunteers.

CHEER is in need of what Herman calls “car food.” That is food that requires neither refrigeration nor heating. He suggests canned foods such as meats, fruits and beans with pop tops only; peanut butter and jelly; crackers and tortillas. In addition, the homeless have a great need for blankets, sleeping bags and jackets. CHEER will also gladly accept monetary donations to purchase food. CHEER is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit so all donations are tax deductible. Donations may be earmarked for the homeless project.

CHEER,
PO Box 1735
Gilroy, CA 95020

Dorothy Day once said, “The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us.” Herman Garcia has started a revolution of the heart in the backcountry of the Pajaro River Watershed. Our father Francis would be pleased.