ARTICLES

Haiti orphanage endowment fund launched

By Brother Cosmas Rubencamp
Special to The Catholic Virginian

On Friday evening, October 19, the Maison Fortuné Orphanage Foundation, Inc. launched a five-year $3,000,000 campaign to begin an endowment to provide operating expenses for the orphanage begun in 2000 by Lefort Jean-Louis in Hinche, Haiti.

The Portsmouth Renaissance Hotel dinner initiating the campaign was sponsored by Bon Secours Hampton Roads Health System. Co-sponsors were the Church of St. Mark, Virginia Beach, and the Church of St. Thérèse, Chesapeake.

Speakers at the dinner included Mr. Jean-Louis as well as Brother Harry Eccles CFX, who lives at the orphanage; Deacon Michael Johnson, of the St. Mark parish and vice president of the Foundation; and Navy Capt. Karen DiRenzo, president of the Foundation.

Four Hampton Roads parishes twinning with the orphanage established the Foundation for its support in 2002: St. Mark and St. Thérèse, plus St. Stephen Martyr and Prince of Peace parishes in Chesapeake (subsequently, Bishop Sullivan Catholic High School became the fifth Foundation partner).

Leadership gifts to the endowment include two $100,000 pledges and a $100,000 life insurance policy by anonymous donors. Subsequent gifts and pledges bring the total to date to well over $500,000.

The orphanage is home to 97 boys and provides free education at the primary level to over 200 boys and girls, all of whom come from situations ranging from homelessness to families too poor to care for and educate them.

Since the foundation of the orphanage and school, 21 of the children are attending the local Catholic high school in Hinche, bicycling from the orphanage at 7:00 each morning. Next year the orphanage will be able to accept girls, who will live on a separate campus but attend school on the main campus.

During the campaign, which will end in 2012, the Foundation’s Board of Directors hopes to raise the remaining two and a half million. In the meantime the operating expenses (this year $127,000) will be raised through the four parishes and school, plus donors scattered across the country. The fund will be managed by a committee chaired by Mark Urben, a member of St. Stephen Martyr parish.

Persons willing to contribute to or help raise the endowment can contact Craig Emerson, the treasurer, at Maison Fortuné Orphanage Foundation, Inc., P O Box 3092, Chesapeake VA 23327–3092.

Those wishing to receive the bi-monthly orphanage newsletter may contact Patrice Schwermer at the diocesan Office of Justice and Peace, 811 Cathedral Place, Richmond 23220.

Other information can be provided by me, the Foundation secretary, Br. Cosmas Rubencamp CFX, at 1621 Grove Avenue, 3–D, Richmond 23220, 804–358-6210.

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