A Message from Josh in Haiti About the Blessing of Having a Solar Generator
This is a message received from Josh in Haiti, who distributes KAH-Verde Valley's food, that we just had to share with you:
"You do not know me; however, I and the people I live around have been very blessed by what you have done for us. My name is Josh Rustin; and I live in Gonaives, Haiti - in the neighborhood where the solar generator you donated was sent. I was the person that Kim and Karen initially contacted about whether or not we could use the generator; and as soon as they mentioned i,t there was no doubt in my mind as to where it was needed. Around the time that they first emailed me, we had been working on the completion of a new medical clinic building. Unfortunately, the city does not run electricity out to our neighborhood; so our options for power up until that point were fairly limited - namely, we have to run a generator whenever we need electricity. As you can imagine, that's not the most ideal situation when you are running a clinic. Apart from the laborious nature of having to go crank the generator every time it was needed, we were also looking at a significant portion of the monthly budget having to be put towards fuel. The nurses that run the clinic do an incredible job of organizing funds and ensuring that the money they have stretches as far as possible in providing medical care to the people in the neighborhood.
At the time, the thought of having to sink part of their budget into fuel was, I guess you would call it, a necessary evil. If possible, we would obviously prefer putting the fuel money towards direct medical assistance; but at the same time, it was necessary to buy fuel so as to provide good medical assistance. Thus, you can imagine our joy when we first heard about the solar generator. The timing of it all worked out beautifully. The first email came as we were having to discuss power options; and then it arrived right before the clinic opened. It now sits on top of the clinic soaking up the blazing Haiti sun and giving the clinic all the power they need every day. It is often difficult to operate day-to-day clinic functions via a gas-powered generator because it's too expensive to run it continuously. Thus, you have to put off anything that requires electricity until it's on and then complete all electric-needy projects at once.
I say that to hopefully paint a picture of how great it is to have a solar powered generator that provides electricity 24/7. The way it enables the clinic to not only run better in the day-to-day functions but also the money it saves on fuel is truly an enormous gift to helping the clinic make an impact in the neighborhood. I don't think I can fully communicate the ways in which having power and not worrying about fuel costs makes a difference in allowing the medical staff to do what they love and to do it well.
As an aside, I mention one other way it is going to be used. Prior to the clinic being built, we had been working on a neighborhood garden; but our biggest hindrance thus far had been water. We had tried a couple different methods of getting water; but none of them were effective - until the solar powered generator arrived. We will now be able to pump water into a water drum that's placed on the roof of the clinic and then allow that water to irrigate the garden. Obviously, water is a big deal to a garden; so it makes me pretty excited that we've figured out a way to do it well.
I tell you all of that in hopes of not only letting you know how the generator is being used but also so that you may get an inkling of how beautiful of a gift it has been to us. I'm not sure of what all you had to go through to get it all the way to Haiti; but I'm guessing that it wasn't easy. I would like you to know that down here there are many people that you've never met that are impacted every day by your effort to do something like send a generator. Some of those people know who you are but many of them don't. It's kinda cool how that all works. All of that to say, thank you Julia. You have done more for what happens here than you know and for that we can only be grateful."
We also want to give a special thanks to Kim, Karen, Jaime, Sgt. Salter and the U.S. Air Force, Reese, Dan and Debra Jones, and everyone at Orca Communications, as well as Julia at ExTreme ReTrailers, LLC.
