Haiti Update

Here is a quick update of our recovery efforts in Haiti over the last week.

Food Distribution:

• Last Tuesday 24 families in Cherident were given rice and cooking oil.
• We made our first food delivery to Cornillon (part of Plant With Purpose’s northern border project). 18.5 tons of rice and 1,585 liters of cooking oil were distributed to 230 families in 5 communities.
• 22.7 tons of rice and 1,632 liters of oil were distributed in 14 communities in the Grande Colline region, including 1.5 tons of rice that were given to local authorities to distribute among community members who are not involved with Plant With Purpose’s programs.
• Food distribution began in Fonds Verrettes (southern Border Project) this weekend and will continue throughout the week.
• 7.6 tons of rice and 576 liters of oil were distributed among authorities from several Sections in the Leogane region.
• Plant With Purpose has distributed approximately 74.8 tons of rice and 11,125 liters of cooking oil in 45 of our member and 2 non-member communities.

Emergency Food Production:

• We have purchased 70,178 lbs of the 75,000 lbs of seed that we need for the project. 7,500 lbs of seeds came from the seed reserves we accumulated as farmers repaid 20% of the bean seeds that were given to them after the storms of 2008,
• Seed distribution began this week, and farmers will begin planting right away in order to produce nutritious food in the next crop cycle.

Short-term employment and Soil Conservation project:

• We have an inventory of 41,300 tree seedlings available from our nurseries and we have ordered 135,000 tree seedlings from local providers.
• We will begin recruiting workers this week to plant seedlings and construct soil erosion barriers on deforested hillsides.