Life

Picking up the pieces

Published: Friday, November 14, 2008

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By BONNIE LANGSTON
Freeman staff

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A Woodstock humanitarian has encountered sweeping poverty during numerous visits to his native country of Haiti, but only weeks ago he witnessed a great blow that deepened that need further — the crushing fury of two hurricanes and a tropical storm.

Pierre Leroy, founder of the 18-year-old Haitian People’s Support Project, landed in the country after Hurricane Hanna, but he arrived in time for Gustav, Fay and Ike.

“I saw people flying (about) in the street,” Leroy said. “The roof of a house came from nowhere and landed in the yard of the place I was staying in Port-au-Prince.”

Money earned from his non-profit’s 10^th annual benefit dance this evening, featuring the band Sonando as well as an accompanying art-and-craft sale, will go toward post-storm restoration and repair. The gathering will take place at New World Home Cooking Restaurant, Route 212, between Woodstock and Saugerties.

Leroy hopes for a take of close to $5,000, but more would be better.

“We would love to raise $10,000,” he said.

Haiti, already the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, continues to suffer extreme adversity. Earlier this month, the country’s largest lake, Azuei, overflowed its banks flooding several towns and threatening ecological disaster. Days ago a school in Port-au-Prince caved in, killing more than 80 students. The earlier hurricanes and tropical storm caused the deaths of nearly 800 people.

To assist, Leroy’s organization has temporarily re-focused its work. Volunteers repaired the roof of a public school, restored another roof over a health clinic and delivered food and water to two small orphanages.

A major need that remains, he said, is the rebuilding and repair of a dozen severely damaged homes in Kofa, a community outside the hamlet of Rodhe, the location of an elementary school that has been receiving aid from the Haitian People’s Support Project. The dispossessed people, parents and children, number 80.

“They were all jammed into that school building, which is slightly bigger than this house,” Leroy said referring to the dwelling he shares with his wife, Terry, numerous caged birds and at least one cat. “They had no way of going home because there were no roofs on their houses.” Continued...

Among other assistance, the project will continue to help a 36-year-old woman who was forced by the hurricanes from her home in Citi Soley, the poorest slum in the country. Leroy said she placed her two adolescent children with neighbors after the destruction.

“She started living on the street,” he said.

“She had a bloated belly. She was ill in addition to being homeless.”

Leroy and another man took her to a hospital where staff determined she has a tumor. It is not yet known if the mass is malignant or benign. What Leroy does know is he is determined to reunite the woman with her children.

“She’s alive,” his wife said, “but if it wasn’t for Pierre, she’d be dead.”

The Haitian People’s Support Project assists orphanages, a health clinic, fishing, pottery and community cooperative and a reforestation project. The $6,000 raised during the organization’s first fundraiser helped people in a place called Gressier, 20 miles south of Port-au-Prince.

“We were able to dig wells and provide water to the whole village,” Leroy said.

Through the years, the event has raised about $40,000.

This evening, items for sale will range from crafts at $8 to paintings priced up to $600. Admittance to the sale is free, while a donation of $20 is suggested for the dance.

At least four of the artworks, abstracts in purple hues, came back on the airplane with Leroy in early October on his return from his more than month-long stay in Haiti. The artist’s name is Guerrier. Continued...

“We met him recently, and we love his work,” Terry Leroy said. “We very quickly sold the ones we had from before.”

Tibo, an artist who participates in the same mountain cooperative as Guerrier, is also represented in the sale with strong works created from river sand.

Pierre Leroy said he has a long history of helping people in trouble. Ironically, he was in trouble himself when, at 20, he fled to the United States. His name was on a government “death list.” He could not even return to his native country for the funeral of his mother for fear of losing his life.

In 1979, he did venture to the Dominican Republic, which borders Haiti.

“He was rounded up at the airport, and they were ready to ship him to (Haitian president Jean-Claude) Duvalier, and somehow he talked his way out of it,” his wife said.

It was in 1990, four years after Duvalier was overthrown, that Leroy began his project, and with the help of his wife and others, he plans to continue it as long as possible. More and more, the focus is on cooperatives that help create a sustainable economy, he said.

“We did quite a bit with pinching pennies,” Leroy said. “It’s not enough. There’s so much to do right now.”

The benefit for the Haitian People’s Support Project begins at 7:30 p.m. tonight with an art-and-craft sale that continues when the dance begins at 9:30 p.m. at New World Home Cooking, Route 212, between Woodstock and Saugerties. Access to the sale is free; a donation of $20 is suggested for the dance. For more information, call (845) 679-7320 or visit the Web site www.haitiansupportproject.org.