Volunteers packing the birthing kits at Nativity. Photos by Terrance Moran/The Connection
Sixteen years ago Father Martin, the pastor of the Catholic Church of the Nativity in Burke, asked hypothetically, “How much money could be raised if each parishioner donated a small amount each week of Lent?”
The result was $67,000 and the beginning of a journey to help the poor in Haiti. The result: over 1,100 homes, nine self-sustaining villages each with a sewing, fishing co-op, tilapia farming and animal husbandry. In collaboration with “Food for the Poor,” the parishioners of Nativity have contributed nearly $4 million in cash and $2 million in goods.
Four times a year the Church of Nativity travels to Haiti. Each time those who make the trip return with a “personal calling.” Jim McDaniel, head of Nativity’s Operation Starfish put it simply, “making the trip to Haiti results in a personal call for action. When they come back something happens and each individual becomes inspired to make a difference.”
This holiday Meg Hanrahan of Burke and Melinda Englebreksson of Fairfax Station decided to act on their “personal call to action.” Each had experienced difficult births. When Melinda saw the conditions that many Haitian women give birth in she asked a local doctor what was needed to improve conditions. The supplies needed to improve the conditions of birth were less than $2.
The two reached out to the Knights of Columbus and the women of Nativity and raised $1,400. With this they were able to package 700 birthing kits. Each kit had sterile gloves, alcohol wipes, sterile gauze pads, string, a bar of soap, and a #10 scalpel.
With the help of 80-90 volunteers 700 kits were assembled in two hours and readied for delivery to Florida where they would be added to Food for the Poor’s shipping containers. The kits were driven to Florida by a few Nativity parishioners.
--Terrance Moran