Circus Provides for Haiti Disaster Relief
Charlie Itzin / Wayuga Contributor
Wednesday, February 3 2010
RED CREEK - The Red Creek Rotary has raised $300 to assist the victims of the 7.2 earthquake that struck Haiti on Jan.12. The donation comes from the Red Creek Rotary’s presentation of Billy Martin’s Cole All Star Circus which drew a sold-out crowd to the Red Creek High School on Sunday.
The funds will go towards the purchase of a “Shelter Box.” Among the first international relief workers to reach Haiti were volunteers from ShelterBox; a U.K.-based disaster response organization supported by Rotary clubs worldwide. Each ShelterBox kit contains a 10-person tent, a water purification system and other survival necessities. About 2,000 ShelterBoxes - enough to assist 20,000 people - are in Haiti, and another 3,000 are due within a week, coordinated by logistics teams set up in Miami, Fla., and Santo Domingo, D.R. The ShelterBox team is first targeting pregnant women and families with newborns, but as team member Mark Pearson says, “The walking wounded are everywhere.”
From raising funds to collecting relief supplies to distributing life-saving shelters in Port-au-Prince, Rotary clubs worldwide continue to ramp up efforts to help save lives. Nearly 1,500 of the walking wounded have been treated by 23 physicians volunteering with Comprehensive Disaster Response Services, assisted by six volunteers from two New York City Rotary clubs. Another 600 patients were admitted to the team’s emergency hospital. The team worries that as time passes, the risk of disease will increase.
“Rotary had an incredible infrastructure established before the quake, which has made our relief efforts very effective,” says Dick McCombe, a member of the Rotary Club of South-East Nassau, Bahamas, noting that Rotary was in good position to help in Haiti, with 33 projects already underway to provide water, sanitation, medical care, and education even before the earthquake
For more information about the Red Creek Rotary programs contact Charlie Itzin at 947-5522.
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