Skip to content
The Archive of The Carrboro Citizen
Menu
  • Home
  • News
  • Community
  • Schools
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Obituaries
  • Sports
  • Mill
  • Flora
  • Print Archive
  • About
Menu

Shock and sadness over devastation in Haiti

Posted on January 14, 2010January 16, 2010 by Staff

By Beth Mechum and Kirk Ross
Staff Writers

It was on the eve of Lori Easterlin’s final Haiti immersion class at Trinity School of Durham and Chapel Hill that a devastating earthquake hit the impoverished Caribbean country.

“Everybody is just overwhelmed and sad and devastated,” Easterlin said. “We have students who in the last week have become attached to Haiti and the issues that they have and are really committed to serving that country, and something like this happens.”

Easterlin is the teacher of the class, which exposed students to the ways of life of the Haitian people.

The culmination of the 10-day class was to be a spring break trip in March to volunteer at a Haitian school.

As of Wednesday, the trip had not been canceled, but Easterlin said if they did travel there it would be in a different capacity.

“We will have an impact on Haiti,” she said. “It depends on what the needs are of the country. Instead of serving at a school, we will definitely be involved in rebuilding in some aspect.”

Trinity School is one of dozens of local organizations and churches with connections to Haiti.

“We’ve just been overwhelmed with calls and people wanting to do something, and it’s very heartwarming and reassuring,” Toby Barfield, chapter executive with the Central North Carolina Red Cross, said Wednesday afternoon. “We appreciate it very much. We want to engage people and give them opportunity to help as much as we can.”

Barfield encouraged people who want to help to make a donation to the Red Cross’ international relief fund at redcross.org. For now, the Red Cross doesn’t have any plans to accept in-kind donations.

Individuals can also donate through their cell carrier by texting “Haiti” to 90999. A $10 donation to the international relief fund will be charged to their phone bill.

Campus reaction

As the community awoke to news that thousands, perhaps even hundreds of thousands, were killed or injured after a 7.0-magnitude quake struck near the capital of Port-Au-Prince, university officials sent word out to all departments asking for information on any students or faculty that might be in the danger zone.

One UNC graduate student, whose name was not released, was in the capital at the time of the quake. She contacted a fellow student in Chapel Hill to say that although the house of the family she was staying with collapsed, she was not injured and was at a UN refugee center waiting to leave the country.

Peggy Bentley, associate dean of global health at the Gillings School of Global Public Health, said university officials were trying to make sure anyone associated with the university is accounted for.

“It is quite horrific and very sad,” she said of the destruction in and around the capital.

Bentley said the school is reviewing the best way to get help to the country. That will likely start with supporting organizations already on the ground.

“We’re waiting and watching,” she said, adding that officials are organizing fundraising in response to an emergency appeal from UNICEF.

UNC Health Care officials say they have at least one doctor on standby who is preparing to go to Haiti.

1 thought on “Shock and sadness over devastation in Haiti”

  1. D Grove says:
    January 16, 2010 at 1:01 am

    “Easterlin is the teacher of the class, which exposed students to the ways of life of the Haitian people, who live in one of the poorest countries in the Southern Hemisphere.”

    Haiti is not in the southern hemisphere. It is north of the equator.

Comments are closed.

Web Archive

© 2025 The Archive of The Carrboro Citizen | Powered by Minimalist Blog WordPress Theme