San Diego Relief Organizations Responding To Haiti
- International Relief Teams
- Thomas Jefferson School of Law
- Rescue Task Force
- Project Concern
- Plant With Purpose
- Box Line Box
- St Michael's Church, Poway
- Disclaimer: KPBS does not necessarily endorse any of the relief organizations.
Several San Diego-based international aid organizations are swinging into action to help the relief effort in Haiti.
Organizations with existing ties to Haiti are best positioned to respond rapidly to the crisis. Andrea Stone of the San Diego-based Rescue Task Force says they have contact with International Faith Missions, a group with a mobile medical clinic.
"Even though we have an organization there they don’t have barely anything," she said. "So to be able to get them the funding to help people with basic stitches, stopping bleeding triage and then move into water and food from there."
Stone says several San Diegans plan to leave early next week to take water containers and cash for fuel and supplies for relief workers.
Chris Bessenecker of Project Concern has already left San Diego for Haiti. His goal is to build connections to begin funneling aid into the more rural communities outside Port-au-Prince.
Scott Sabin of Plant with Purpose, another San Diego-based group, has been working on reforestation and sustainable agriculture in Haiti for more than a decade. He says their work will focus on longer term recovery.
"For the work to come, in the weeks to come, that’s where we come in," he said. "Helping people to rebuild homes and get life back to normal after the immediate rescue has taken place."
Sabin said he had news that the Haitian workers on his projects have survived, though some of their families have not, and many of the workers are now homeless.
For more information on how you can donate to relief efforts, see NPR's list of aid organizations.
