Voices of Haiti relief

More stories of Minnesotans' efforts to help out in Haiti in the aftermath of last month's earthquake.

Emma Pettis, age 10

For my birthday instead of presents or gifts from my friends, I asked them to bring money for Feed My Starving Children. They make meals and send them to places where they don't have enough money to have their own meals. We collected $250 and that's enough to feed 1500 children for a day.

Bud Bonnema from Prinsburg, Minn.

Ten years ago, my wife and I opened up an infant care center in Cap Haitien, Haiti called Children of the Promise. We've been taking in neglected, malnourishied children and children needing medical attention. We're about 90 miles from the epicenter of the earthquake so we didn't receive any damage, but we are on standby to take in more kids who are victims of the earthquake once they get out of the hospital.

The community of Willmar wanted a group effort to make a larger impact. So with the community businesses, civic groups we are organizing a shipping container to send 100,000 meals, baby supplies, medical supplies, housing supplies to the area that has been deeply affected. We've had a lot of good supplies given.

We had a special day at Cash Wise Foods where people could purchase products and leave them with us. We're also working with Kids Against Hunger to get most of the meals. We've got a lot of hands to help with the physical work and the businesses have stepped up to help with transportation costs. It's been great to see people involved and not worried about their own group -- just as a whole community.

LeeAnn Pomrenke, East Side of St. Paul

When the earthquake happened we immediately started thinking about what we could do. My husband, Stefan Pomrenke who is a resident at St. Joseph's, has long admired Dr. Paul Farmer who started Partners in Health.

My first impulse was to have a fundraising party and his first impulse was to do something for Partners in Health. We sent out a challenge to our friends, co-workers to give to this organization and we made the challenge that we would match it. To date, we've raised over $4000. Right now my husband is in Jacmel, Haiti with a pharmacist from St. John's and a group from Florida.

Now they're transferring to work with a different group in Port-Au-Prince, No Time For Poverty which is a foundation of Boston Health Care System which is also based on the East Side. They've been running a clinic and the first couple of days a lot of what they saw was hunger related, not as much trauma right now the ongoing concern is not having an adequate food supply. What he's seen in Jacmel will be magnified when he gets to the big city.

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