(Newswire.net — December 18, 2014) Thomson, Illinois — Two Thomson, Ill., businesses raised more than $5,000 for a Haiti orphanage and ministry Dec. 9 during a Christmas fundraiser dinner held at the Heirloom Market & Café.
The Heirloom Market & Café teamed up with Solutions from Science to sponsor the fundraiser for Heart of God Haiti, a non-denominational ministry which meets the emotional, physical, educational and spiritual needs for extremely impoverished or orphaned children in Haiti.
The 2010 earthquake that devastated Haiti and killed anywhere from 100,000 to 160,000 also impacted Heart of God Haiti, which saw its school building destroyed and about 40 children die. But the ministry has since grown back, and now runs an orphanage and partners with an adjacent school to assist 18 children. Heart of God Haiti also works to bring adults out of poverty.
Dave Young, executive director of the ministry, spoke at the fundraiser.
“Only about 53 percent of the population is able to read and write, and you have a huge problem with poverty,” Young said. “There’s a huge amount of underemployment.”
It isn’t uncommon for young girls to get trafficked into prostitution and for boys to join gangs, he said. The male unemployment rate is as high as 80 percent.
A child without both parents faces a bleak future in Haiti, Young said.
“Most likely they are going to fall into crime,” he said. “The boys are going to get involved in gangs. The child will be uneducated, won’t have any critical skills. And the cycle of poverty will start all over again. Our goal is to break that cycle of poverty while giving them the skills they need. And it will impact not only these children, but when they become adults, their children as well. They will be able to take care of their family.”
The orphanage houses not only children who have lost both parents but also children whose one living parent (often a mother) is unable to care for the child. The goal is to reunite mother and child.
The ministry educates the parents and gives them business skills through a unique microloan program. The mother is loaned $60 to run a business, and if she repays that, she receives $120, and if she repays that, she gets $240 – and so on.
“These moms are showing their friends and families: This is how you run a business,” Young said. “That has resulted in literally hundreds of children not having to go to an orphanage, and has pulled families out of poverty.”
For more information or to donate, visit HeartOfGodHaiti.org.