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PHOTO GALLERY: Aftermath of Earthquake in Haiti

Phones were ringing constantly at Sant La Haitian Neighborhood Center in Miami on Wednesday. The social service organization in South Florida was again preparing to assist brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers and friends through a major crisis.

“People ask, 'What can we do? How will we do it?'” said Gepsie Metellus, executive director of the center in Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood. “Where is all of that rubble going to go? How do we rebuild Port-au-Prince?”

Right now, Sant La is encouraging those who want to help Haitians devastated by this week’s earthquake to contribute money to relief agencies such as the American Red Cross, World Vision and Food the World. 

“These agencies have experience in getting the resources in place to help the people in need,” Metellus told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “We are waiting for the preliminary assessments to be done before we suggest that people donate specific items."

There are only two options right now for getting goods into Haiti – boats and planes.

“I would not want to collect items that just sat somewhere and could not make it into the hands of people who need it,” she said. “Right now, we don’t know what warehouses have been destroyed or what remains."
 
Metellus, a native of Haiti, has been in America several years, graduating from Queens College, City University of New York and earning a graduate degree from Florida International University in Miami.

“The anxiety here in the community is thick. It’s so thick, you could cut it with a knife. People want to call, but the phone lines are down,” she said. But they keep trying in hopes of getting through on a cell connection that has been restored.

Monica Gaitor and her sister, Jennifer, have been calling their mother, Gracieuse Gaitor, and brother, Ricardo Isme, in Port-au-Prince, to no avail.

“We still haven’t gotten any news. We’ve been calling; we’ve been having people call, but no one has heard anything,” said Gaitor, who has lived in Atlanta since 2003.

“I spoke to my mom the day of the earthquake, that morning. My sister spoke to her the day before,” Gaitor told BlackAmericaWeb.com.
She said the sisters hope to find someone who can help them determine the status of their family members.

Asked if she was aware of any organizations in the Atlanta area that could assist them in their search, Gaitor said, “I’m not aware of anything, really. The most we’ve been doing is watching CNN.”

“Haiti, even before this, was not in good shape, but the situation is extremely dire,” said Michael Zamba, senior director of communications and public affairs for the Pan American Development Foundation. “People are asking how they can help, and we’re driving them to www.panamericanrelief.org. Because we do national disaster response, we’re able to procure goods people need in Haiti in the Dominican Republic. People want to send water and clothes, and that’s nice, but it’s difficult to transport those kinds of goods long distances.”

With money, however, the agency can buy “shelter kits,” which contain pallets, tarps, water purification tablets and other supplies that allow relief workers to construct “little mini-cities” and accommodate many more people immediately, he said.

“To give you a sense of perspective,” Zamba said, “80 percent of the population lives in poverty; 50 percent live on less than $1 a day. It’s a food-poor country and the poorest country in the western hemisphere, and it was hit by four back-to-back hurricanes in the past year.”

Following the earthquake, U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, a South Florida Democrat who represents more Haitian-Americans than any .....

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