Episcopal Church's Haiti Appeal ready to accept donations
Episcopal News Service. January 3, 2011 [010311-02]
ENS staff
The Episcopal Church is preparing to launch a fund-raising effort to help "rebuild the soul" of Haiti, according to a Jan. 3 release from the Episcopal Church Foundation.
The focus of what the release calls the "initial phase of rebuilding" will be the Episcopal Diocese of Haiti's Holy Trinity Cathedral complex in Port-au-Prince. Nearly all the diocese's church buildings were effectively leveled by the Jan. 12, 2010 magnitude-7 earthquake, the release said.
The cathedral complex once contained Holy Trinity Music School, Holy Trinity Professional School, primary and secondary schools, and St. Margaret's Convent, a convent of the Sisters of St. Margaret, as well as the church with its world-renowned murals depicting biblical stories in Haitian motifs, which were crafted by some of the best-known Haitian painters of the 20th century.
"The cathedral was a beacon in a land where strength of faith is inversely proportional to economic development," the foundation's release said.
The Diocese of Haiti is numerically the largest diocese in the Episcopal Church and prior to the earthquake ran a network of 254 schools that taught more than 80,000 Haitians from preschool to university level. Other institutions included a school for handicapped children, a trade school, a music school, a two-year business school, a nursing school that granted the first baccalaureate degrees in the country in January 2009, a seminary and a university. A renowned philharmonic orchestra and children's choir were based at the cathedral and both are still performing. The diocese also provides ran medical clinics, development projects and micro-financing efforts.
In October, the Episcopal Church's Executive Council reaffirmed its February challenge to the church to raise $10 million to help begin to rebuild the Episcopal Diocese of Haiti. Haitian Bishop Jean Zaché Duracin asked that the effort be directed to the cathedral complex. The council designated the Episcopal Church Foundation to coordinate a church-wide appeal.
"The people of Haiti have lost the central symbol of their gathering place for the worship of God," Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori says in a video posted on a new website for the appeal. She says the destruction of the cathedral has "destroyed the heart of the church of Haiti."
"It's going to take the resources of the entire Episcopal Church to serve the reconstruction needs of the buildings of the diocese," she said.
Later this month the foundation will provide news, information, and resources so that congregations and dioceses throughout church can join in the fundraising effort, the release said.
No goal amount was announced in the Jan. 3 release. In November a report released during a meeting of many of the diocese's current mission partners predicted that the first phase of post-earthquake reconstruction and development for the entire diocese will cost close to $197 million. The Plan for the Reconstruction and Development of the Diocese of Haiti (Phase 1) said that the $196,861,926 cost estimate includes a $24,319,400 "local contribution," thus leaving $172,542,526 to come from outside sources.
Even before the appeal's official launch, the foundation's press release said, several dioceses have designated their convention offerings for this effort and early half of diocesan bishops are in the planning process for fund-raising work in their dioceses.
Contributions have already been received from as far away as Australia and France, the release said.
In the meantime, according to the release, "individuals can be leaders in rebuilding the central pillar of support that once provided spiritual, educational, and medical care to hundreds of thousands of Haitians" by beginning to buy bricks for the effort. They range in price from $10 for one brick to $1,000 for 100 bricks. Other amounts can be designated. More information, along with ways to donate in any amount, is here.
In a related matter, subscribers to Episcopal News Monthly with money remaining in their accounts after the newspaper ceases publication this month are being mailed letters this week inviting them to donate to the Haiti appeal, or to request a refund.
"We certainly hope that our subscribers will consider taking this opportunity to be among the early leaders in this effort to help our sisters and brothers in Haiti rebuild their cathedral," said the Rev. Mary Frances Schjonberg, outgoing ENM and ENQ editor.