The Haitian Ministry of Education has delayed the start of the next school year for one month, until October 3. I have the budget for our Barefoot School in Haiti for the upcoming school year, now October 3, 2022, through July 2023. The total budget to operate the school for 10 months is $37,972.25. Our …
Tag Archives: GBCCS
“One of Our Students Was Shot Last Night”
Yesterday evening, Justin informed me that we successfully concluded our summer camp. “Today we are surrounded by happiness,” he writes. “During the camp, the children play with each other, eat together, tell jokes, learn about their culture, and history, and learn things that can be useful to make a little money in the future, like …
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Promises to Keep
As July’s horrific violence in Citè Soleil subsided, we delayed our summer camp until the second week in August, and we completed the first of three weeks without incident last week. As many as 276 children came to the camp each day. Sadly, we could only accommodate 150; we had to turn 126 children away. …
Let Me Give You a Definition of Ethics
“Let me give you a definition of ethics: it is good to maintain life and further life; it is bad to destroy and damage life.” So writes Dr. Albert Schweitzer in his 1933 autobiography “Out of My Life and Thought.” The recipient of the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize, Dr. Schweitzer offers other thoughts that came …
Summer Camp in Haiti
We keep the faith. We know there is a way and with God’s grace, we will find it. Within 24 hours of yesterday’s post searching for support for our summer camp in Haiti next month, another Samaritan – husband and wife – contacted us and volunteered to financially sponsor the complete camp. Their generosity enables …
Courage and Commitment
Our school year in Haiti concludes this week with final exams. We are planning a small party for teachers and students. But as the week commences, we must adapt to the forces in play around us. I awoke this morning to this headline in Le Nouvelliste, the Haitian newspaper I read daily… “Cité Soleil: At …
Knucklebones
It was exactly 20 years ago (Flag Day 2002) when I chose to leave ‘corporate America’ to write a book. We published The Olympian, A Tale of Ancient Hellas six years later. It remains my ‘bestseller.’ Early in the story, Simonides and his traveling companions reach the harbor town of Itea and enter an inn …
Good Child Today… Good Person Tomorrow
As we complete the second full month of the Barefoot School in Cité Soleil, Haiti, our staff administers tests – midterms, if you will – to the hundreds of students who comprise our student body. The original 100 children we planned to serve has swelled to as many as 300 and we keep our doors …
And Still They Come…
When my friend first suggested that each of us ‘needs a break,’ I blew him off. He’s right – as he usually is – but each of us has so many things to do that effect so many people. Still, the more he talked about it, the more I felt like it would be good …
Shoes
In America, we take many things for granted. In recent years, our sense of entitlement knows no bounds. About a year ago, my friend Justin posted this picture of four homeless Haitian boys sleeping on the streets in Cité Soleil with this commentary… “…are they the ones who make the choice to live like this?… …