TEN YEARS AND COUNTING!

On behalf of The Red Thread Promise, we want to thank you for your continued support of our organization. Without people like you, we wouldn't be where we are today, beginning our 10th anniversary celebration! 

We have served countless children in China, Haiti, Uganda and the USA over the past decade. We look forward to continuing our mission—providing hope and healing to needy and orphaned children—with you at our side! 

As 2014 approaches, we wanted to share some exciting opportunities to serve and be in mission with us.

DOMESTIC TRAVEL
In the US, we will continue offering bi-annual trips in the spring and fall to McKenna Farms, our partner providing hippotherapy and therapeutic riding in the south (Dallas, GA). We are excited to announce that we will begin hosting mission trips to our new partner farm in the north, HillTop Equestrian Center (West Alexandria, OH) as well! During these missions, each team performs a variety of stable, grounds and facility work, learns about the therapy offered and the impact it has on young lives, and—most importantly—meets some of the kids we sponsor in our own backyards.

McKenna Farms, Georgia

HillTop Equestrian Center, Ohio

INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL
With more than 15 trips to St. Vincent’s Center for Handicapped Children over the past three years, The Red Thread will continue offering medical and non-medical mission trips to St. Vincent’s in Port-au-Prince and other areas in Haiti. We have an exciting opportunity to visit a Haitian hippotherapy farm during our upcoming trip (Nov. 2013) and are hopeful to begin a relationship there. This would allow us to offer both hippotherapy and therapeutic riding to kids at St. Vincent's. As we focus on these major medical issues, we will no longer offer Camp Jake. The Red Thread celebrates the three successful sessions we completed over the past two years and we look forward to offering new opportunities that will enrich the children’s lives and improve their health.

St. Vincent's Center for Handicapped Children, Haiti

LOOKING FORWARD
As The Red Thread team reflects on our years of service and looks to the future, we feel our organization is poised to delve deeper into life-changing medical care for disadvantaged children. We will continue to provide services that the child would not receive without intervention, including surgeries, long-term medical treatment, therapy and nutrition. By improving the state of these kids’ health, together, we make a lasting irreversible positive impact on a child’s life, increase their self-confidence, and open doors to a better future. 
  
Who knows where 2014 will lead? It may be the perfect time for our first trips to China and Uganda. Wouldn’t that be a grand way to celebrate our anniversary?!

We look forward to sharing details of upcoming travel and gifting opportunities as we work together to care for needy and orphaned children, TEN YEARS and counting!

Haiti Happenings, Part 8 - HOLY TRINITY & ST. VINCENT'S

Holy Trinity Symphony

Only blocks away from the empty palace grounds are what remain of Holy Trinity Episcopal Cathedral. Our team and others from the Haiti Connection conference toured their large temporary sanctuary and school that take up all of the usable property. Both the music school and classes continue for students. 

Holy Trinity students listening to the symphony

We were fortunate enough to arrive when Les Petite Chanteaurs (Boys Choir) and Holy Trinity Symphony Orchestra were practicing for an upcoming event. What a treat it was to enjoy their music! 

Sadly, a HUGE cathedral bell—one of the only remaining artifacts from the original cathedral—was recently stolen. How the thieves were able to move such a massive bell is unimaginable. The bells have now been walled in with cement to prevent further theft until the cathedral is rebuilt in years to come. 

The bells from Holy Trinity (photo from 2011)

Last, but certainly not least, St. Vincent’s is steadily showing signs of rebirth:

• St. Vincent’s now has its very own library which is slowly being stocked with books
• Kathy tested out the new sound-proof audiology booth that is set up in a dedicated space to serve the deaf children
• The storage room that we cleaned out and organized two years ago has been converted to a music room that will soon be shared with computer lab The Red Thread is helping to establish
• The water purification system is up and running 

Claurrician, a student at St. Vincent's operating St. Vincent's new gift shop,
and John, a friend from West Tennessee Haiti Partnership.
The shop sell's student's work, including jewelry, artwork and handbags

Journeyman working in the new brace shop

The brace shop

The brace shop shares space with the new clinic

The building will house an expanded pharmacy and multiple clinic rooms

As soon as these areas are furnished and stocked, it will be open for business,
serving St. Vincent's students, staff and the community

The new facility will house both permanent and visiting medical teams year round

Looking into a clinic room

The view from inside the clinic looking out

And, to our delight, the children are growing up! They are each a year older and happy. New faces abound as well. The school is now running at full capacity for the current space. And yet there are still children waiting to get in the doors of this very special place in the heart of Port-au-Prince.

Haiti Happenings, Part 2 - WATER!

What's new at St. Vincent's?

WATER PURIFICATION SYSTEM


St. Vincent's new water purification system is up and running. It uses existing well water from St. Vincent's property. The 
water is pumped up from the ground and goes through the system, which cleans and purifies it. This new system provides clean water for St. Vincent's students 24 / 7. Extra water is sold to the community to help keep the purification system sustainable.

The purification system

One of the roof-top water collection barrels

Providing fresh water

During our many visits to Haiti since 2009, we have taken a long, hard look at some basic necessities that, while abundant in many parts of the world, are at a premium in Haiti. One of those critical necessities is potable water.

Potable water is pure enough to drink with a low risk of harm, both immediate and long-term. In Haiti, thousands upon thousands of people have inadequate access to potable water. Water sources are often severly contaminated, as most recently demonstrated in the cholera outbreak which plagues the country to this day. (For the latest in the cholera epidemic, please see this article published yesterday.)

A similar water filtration system in Haiti

The Red Thread Promise is working with several other agencies to install a large water filtration system at St. Vincent's Center for Handicapped Children in downtown Port-au-Prince. Those agencies include Episcopal Diocese of Olympia, Friends of St. Vincent's, Rotary Club of Lunenburg and West Tennessee Haiti Partnership. As you know from our many posts, St. Vincent's serves children with a variety of disabilities (including hearing impairment, sight impairment, loss of limbs, etc), providing an education, medical services and home for students and orphans in their care. During the months at the height of the cholera epidemic, the Center's Director had to make critical choices with St. Vincent's limited funds: provide a meal or fresh water for the students. Naturally, water was the choice. Students went with little to no food for some time as funds were constantly being used to purchase expensive clean water.

Working together, our team is currently fundraising and planning for the installation of a water filtration system so that the Center's Director no longer has to make this critical choice. Once in place, a constant source of potable water will be available for the Center, staff and students. Extra water will be sold to the public for a nominal fee in order to generate enough income for the filtration system to be self-sustaining. Routine maintenance will keep the filtration system in operating condition constantly so no child has to go without water.

Thank you for your supporting The Red Thread's efforts to provide clean drinking water to orphans and students at St. Vincent's as well as the people in the surrounding area.