Please Help Haiti
by Gov. Don Dudey
The Capital District Board of Directors met on Monday, Jan 18 by teleconference to discuss how the Capital District should proceed in providing help to the many in need in Haiti. After weighing the different ideas, the Board would like to recommend that your donations would be best used if we assisted the Eastern Canada & Caribbean District's effort described below. We felt that Kiwanis has had a very good relationship with UNICEF with our IDD program and the fact that we have both matching funds of $4 benefit for each of our $1 provided and the use of a proven agency distributing the funds in the country in need. This is only a recommendation, so if your club feels like they want to proceed in another direction, that is your choice, but the one thing we all agree on, we as Kiwanis Clubs should respond in the largest amount of support we can afford.
Thank you,
Gov. Don Dudey
Dear Governor Don,
With great sadness we have learned of the terrible tragedy that has befallen Haiti. The loss of human life is staggering. The suffering that will continue is beyond comprehension.
Haiti is a member of our Kiwanis family with an active Kiwanis club (the Kiwanis Club of Jeremie) under the leadership of President David Latour. They need our help.
You can help.
Our Kiwanis Foundation of Canada and our Kiwanis International Foundation have each committed $10,000 to be used to match money donated by our clubs and our members. We are petitioning the Government of Canada to match our combined money and the indication is that they will. That means that a $100 individual donation will yield $400 in Haitian aid.
In order to make sure that our donations go to where they are most needed, we have partnered with UNICEF Canada. UNICEF already has field workers in Haiti providing much needed aid.
Don, we have set up a special Kiwanis web page, with UNICEF, that will allow them to track our Kiwanis donations and provide the necessary reports to our Foundations and to the Government of Canada. By going to our Kiwanis ECC website (www.kiwanisecc.org) and clicking on this link you will be directed to our special UNICEF donation site. Please pass this information on to your Kiwanis clubs and fellow members.
Kiwanians live to serve the children of the world. Our children are crying out for our help. Please go to our District web site (www.kiwanisecc.org) and click on our special donation link to pledge your support.
Sincerely,
Gary Levine, Governor
Eastern Canada and Caribbean District
Kiwanis International
