The Help For Haiti Has NOT Lost Momentum

Helping Hand USA for Relief and Development has sent over 18,620 pounds of clothes and 23,232 water bottles to their relief camp in Haiti.

The tendency of many organizations in disaster relief is to flood their resources into and exhaust their efforts on immediate response. After the adrenaline of the emergency response has dissolved, and the media coverage has ceased, the attention for the issue becomes abysmal. In the midst of this harsh reality are the few who continue to press on even after the truth of disaster relief becomes a long drawn redevelopment process. One of these organizations is Helping Hand USA.

After immediate, on the ground response and sponsorship of medical personnel from all around the world, the struggle for the Haitian people continued for Helping Hand, a non-profit organization based in Detroit, MI. With a full fledged campaign to gather enough materials for an entire camp of impoverished Haitian people, the organization brought together a nation of people of all faiths and backgrounds for the sake of humanity. Here, is Los Angeles, a minimal staff had maximum hope in the Southern Californian community. Helping Hand USA contacted the Islamic Center of Inland Empire, Islamic Society of Orange County and the Islamic Center of the West Coast. The collaboration brought forth an amazing feat of camaraderie as the local communities filled entire halls with clothing, medical equipment, computers, food, toys and supplies that are urgently needed by the Haitian natives.

The efforts found greater momentum when a local Muslim-owned business helped bundle and pack a full forty-foot container to ship to Haiti. This astounding feat was only made more miraculous when another Muslim business owner was inspired by Helping Hand’s work in Haiti and donated sixteen pallets of water bottles for the cause. Helping Hand representatives saw off the container on Tuesday March 16^th, 2010. This was only four days after the initial disaster’s 2-month memorial held in the same warehouse it was shipped from. Helping Hand continues their work in Haiti with several simultaneous projects to ensure the Haitian natives are getting what is needed to rebuild their futures. For the future is a long-term process, not just an immediate response. The Haitian people have come to understand this all to well. But they are learning to cope, hand in hand with Helping Hand USA.