Dallas-Haiti Project Offers Chance to Help

In order to help Haiti, you don't have to just sling cash out into the great unknown. Several groups in Dallas have long-standing involvement in relief efforts there -- among them Dallas-Haiti Project, which has been around for eight years. It began with nine women connected with St. Michael and...

By Jim Schutze

January 15, 2010

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In order to help Haiti, you don't have to just sling cash out into the great unknown. Several groups in Dallas have long-standing involvement in relief efforts there -- among them Dallas-Haiti Project, which has been around for eight years. It began with nine women connected with St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church; now, it's a stand-alone 501(c)3.

The group was put together by Gretchen and Warren Berggren of the Harvard School of Public Health when the Berggrens were living here to be near a daughter. Now, the Dallas-Haiti Project raises money in North Texas, often through schools, to support the St. Vincent School for Handicapped Children in Port-au-Prince. Go to their site to see the dedicated fund they have started for earthquake victims.

They're still so small-scale they can only accept checks, member Susan Aberg told me this afternoon. But in the true spirit of giving, they are asking people who want to make donations by credit card to give the money to Partners in Health, a much larger organization associated with the School of Public Health at Harvard.

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Jim Schutze has been the city columnist for the Dallas Observer since 1998. He has been a recipient of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies’ national award for best commentary and Lincoln University’s national Unity Award for writing on civil rights and racial issues. In 2011 he was admitted to the Texas Institute of Letters.

Contact: Jim Schutze