Southeast Region
Founded in 2005 following the formation of the national Friends of the Orphans organization, the Southeast regional office is located in Miami, Florida. It encompasses the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee.
In addition to fundraising, the office obtains in-kind donations, such as new clothing, school and medical supplies, and health care items, from individuals and corporations and ships them to the Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos (NPH, Spanish for "Our Little Brothers and Sisters") homes. In-Kind gifts mean less of each home’s budget is used for basic needs — freeing up funds for costly healthcare items, building maintenance, and other critical areas. If you are interested in making an in-kind donation, please contact Alfredo Benitez, NPH Home Liaison, at (786) 286-2656 or abenitez@friendsus.org.
Notes & News
Photo from left: Gulliver’s Claude Charon, engineering students Kyle Kurzner and David Shapiro, and Friends of the Orphans' Sherman Humphrey and Alfredo Benitez
Gulliver Schools Donates Water Purification System for Haiti
An ultraviolet water filtration system recently built by engineering and biomedical science students of Gulliver Preparatory School in Miami, FL, has been delivered to the Southeast regional office of Friends of the Orphans. The system will arrive in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in the next two weeks and should be in operation by early July. The water will be used for drinking and medical purposes. “As a result of the earthquake, it’s very timely to get this system in place,” said Sherman Humphrey of the Friends Southeast regional office. “The people of Haiti desperately need drinking water.”
According to Claude Charon, department chair of Gulliver’s Engineering and Biomedical Science Department, the system will generate 800 gallons of safe drinkable water per day. “The system removes dangerous waterborne bacteria, viruses and protozoa from Haiti’s water supply,” he said. “In addition to the ultraviolet water filtration system, our students are also developing a reverse osmosis water purification prototype.” The project is being funded by a two-year grant from the Lemelson-Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The success of the Haitian Water Purification System project is the most recent accomplishment for Gulliver’s unique pre-engineering program, which integrates hands-on learning through service projects and textbook studies in its curriculum. “We want our students to design and develop technology solutions that improve the quality of life for individuals and communities,” said Charron. “That was the overriding theme for our Haiti water purification project.”
Friends of the Orphans is very grateful to Gulliver Schools and the students who worked on this project.
Photo from left: Gulliver students Dan Smith, Eric Tano, Kyle Kurzner, David Shapiro, Kaleb Lazor, Martin Arostegui
Featured Friends
Kyra Abbott
Miracle of the Heart
This is the true story of a very blessed little girl named Yvrose (pronounced EveRose) Louis. She is the fourth born of five children and is five years old. Yvrose’s mother died three years ago, and her poor, peasant father was obliged to place his four youngest children into the Nos Petit Frères et Soeurs/Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos (NPFS/NPH), French/Spanish for Our Little Brothers and Sisters, Haiti children’s home as he simply did not have the means to care for them on his own.
Yvrose was born with Tetrology of Fallot, a combination of four congenital heart problems that caused her heart to mix oxygen-rich and oxygen-poor blood together. This meant that her body was constantly oxygen deprived, and she would have ‘blue baby spells’ where she would become very air hungry and blue (cyanotic). Also as a result of her heart problem, Yvrose is quite tiny for her age as her heart could not support normal growth rates.
Yvrose was selected and sponsored for surgical repair (open-heart surgery) at Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital in Hollywood, Florida, through the Rotary Club "Gift of Life" program. This surgery would give Yvrose the opportunity to live a more normal and active life, well into adulthood.
As a volunteer with NPFS/NPH Haiti and fluent Creole speaker, I was selected to serve as Yvrose’s "surrogate mommy" during her trip. Yvrose and I bonded really easily, and I know she was happy to have so much attention devoted solely to her. She is a very easy-going child, very bright, very warm, and very easy to love.
I am a Registered Nurse with a pediatric background, including pediatric emergency, and am used to seeing and caring for really sick children both in Canada and Haiti. But none of my previous experiences prepared me for the stress and emotions I would experience the day of Yvrose’s surgery. She was rolled into the operating room on the morning of January 24, 2007, and I had little doubt that anything would go wrong, but felt rather anxious nonetheless. I had been informed of the risks involved with the surgery and had signed her consent forms. Naturally, I felt responsible for her, and prayed for only the best outcome. It was a long five hours until I would see her again. Read more...