"The Father John Dear Haiti Fund"
BY JOHN DEAR
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Dear Friends,
Peace be with you! I’m writing to share my sorrow and concerns about Tuesday’s devastating earthquake in Haiti, a place close to my heart. I spent nearly a month in Haiti in the early 1990s, and testified to a U.N. panel about what I witnessed. I have been scheduled to lead a retreat day for the staff of “Food for the Poor” (a leading charitable organization) and join their fact-finding trip to Haiti this fall. This past fall, I joined President Clinton and various U.N. Haiti staff in a special evening to celebrate our friend Dr. Paul Farmer, who has done so much for Haiti (see: www.pih.org). That night I met many key people working in solidarity with Haiti.
Like you, I want to do something. So I am working to raise immediate funds for earthquake relief through Catholic Relief Services (CRS), one of the leading relief organizations in the world, which has been in Haiti for 55 years and has over 300 staff there. CRS has set up a special fund in my name, called “The Father John Dear Haiti Fund” to accept donations from friends and colleagues around the country and the world to be used immediately for their massive relief effort. I want to raise $50,000 for earthquake relief for Haiti.
And so, I invite everyone I know to join me, and to make a donation to this fund to help with the relief effort. Please make whatever contribution you can---$10, $25, $100, or for those who can afford it, $1000.
You can pay in several ways. The easiest is to go to the page for the fund on their website:
http://donate.crs.org/goto/fatherjohn
and pay right there on line with a credit card.
Or you can donate by phone by calling CRS at 1-800-736-3467 (mention it’s for “the Fr. John Dear Haiti Fund”). You can also send a check by mail to: “Catholic Relief Services,” P.O. Box 17090, Baltimore, Maryland 21203-7090. Checks can be made payable to “Catholic Relief Services” (and write on the memo line, “For the Father John Dear Haiti Fund”).
Please feel free to send this email out far and wide, to post it wherever you want, and to join me in raising funds for our Haitian sisters and brothers. Also, please check out their website at www.crs.org. Thank you for whatever you can give, for whatever you can do for Haiti.
Meanwhile, let’s pray for the suffering people of Haiti, for immediate food, water, medicine and shelter for them, for those assisting the needy, and for the longer term Haitian struggle for justice and peace. Thank you for all the great good you do for the poor and marginalized, for peace and justice. May the God of peace bless the people of Haiti and us all!
Yours in peace,
John Dear
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