How To Get Involved

Perhaps the greatest help you can give our small organization is to make a financial donation. You can be confident that we will put every dollar to good use.

If you want to become more personally involved, we are always looking for fundraising help as well as ideas along with a commitment to follow through. Periodically we need people on the ground in Haiti to help us manage projects. Some positions require some technical skill in construction or project management while others do not. Volunteering is very personally rewarding. Not only will you be able to assist others in need, but you will also learn more about yourself from your interaction with Haitians and take this back home with you. Contact us for more information and we can also put you into contact with former volunteers to share their experience.

HSP is looking for a solid used vehicle for transport to Haiti to be used by our team. If you have or know of someone who may be interested in donating such a vehicle we would love to hear from you.

Want to directly help a Haitian family and have your donation keep on helping for a long time to come? Consider our “Shed a Light on Haiti” solar light program. In Haiti once the sun goes down and darkness descends it’s very difficult for kids to read or do schoolwork. Some families use kerosene to fuel lanterns but the cost is high and breathing in the fumes in confined spaces has definite adverse health consequences. Our solar light program addresses both the cost and health issues associated with kerosene lanterns.Through a generous donation specifically for this program we were able to provide solar battery powered lights to families. And the best part is that this program is largely self sustaining.Here’s how it works: through one generous donation we were able to buy 25 light units. Each unit consists of a solar collector, rechargeable battery and two LED lights. The battery when fully charged can keep the lights on for 17 hours. It also can be used to charge cellphones. This is a big deal in Haiti because otherwise people have to pay just to charge a phone as electricity in the home is rare. We distribute units to five families in the village selected for this pilot program each month, collecting the Haitian equivalent of one dollar a week from each family. At the end of fifty weeks the family owns the light system. As long as all the families stay current with their payments we give another five families a light system each month; and so on and so on.

The benefits of this program is several fold:

• The families receiving the system are not being given a handout so their self-esteem remains intact.
• They are accountable to the rest of the villagers because if they stop paying no one else will get a light system.
• The program leads to ownership of the light system that end of fifty weeks.
  The money collected is used to buy more light systems to keep the program going.
• HSP injects additional funds to make up for shortfalls and to administer the program.
• You can make a real and direct difference in a Haitian family’s life by buying a light system. Fifty dollars will buy one complete system. Once the family pays off their lights that money is re-injected into the program. It keeps on working.

What could be better!