Happy New Year everybody! We hope you all had a great holiday season. This update is about our wedding, a brief update on the boys we are adopting and where the JRF is looking to grow/improve in 2018.
In November, many of you know that Catherine and I had our wedding celebration in Haiti. We got married in Vegas in January 2017. It was a morning decision followed by evening wedding and while that was great and we both agree that one day engagements are underutilized, it didn’t give us a chance to plan a proper celebration. We wanted to combine our Haitian and American families/people and were so grateful that so many were able to make it down. Several long-term donors got to see where their money has been going, and I’m thrilled to report that all were impressed. Everyone was also shocked by how nice and safe Jacmel is; people are far more afraid of Haiti than they should be, the beaches are beautiful, crime is minimal and only the airport and one resort beach are tourist traps.
A shot from our “first” dance to a mix of “Suavemente” by Elvis Crespo and “Finally Moving” by Pretty Lights.
Catherine, Nelson, and some of the girls of the JRF during the reception.
We had a party at the Joan Rose Foundation on Friday, November 10th that was catered by all of the women that live in the JRF community. It was captained by Good Threads’ top design stitchers (biggest earners) and the JRF cooks. We, of course, put up all the money for the food and drink but they spent two or three days prepping and cooking and did an amazing job. It was impossible to keep the neighbors out, but we didn’t have any issues with them. Saturday night we had a more exclusive party at a venue in downtown Jacmel that was also a blast. We had a buffet line, drinks, dancing, and coconuts aplenty.
Catherine and I continue to progress in the adoption of our four boys. We have had a meeting with the higher ups of Haitian social services and will hopefully finish this in 2018. It’s a fully opaque process and our lawyer is definitely dishonest , but to date not a crook. The only thing the adoption really affects right now is our ability to bring the boys to the US for Christmas break or vacation. Currently, Catherine and I take turns going back to the US for a break or holiday.
The development of all four boys has been amazing. Nelson was so young when we got him that he didn’t carry any real emotional scarring from his grandmother dying, he just had a lot of physical issues due to being so incredibly malnourished the first two ye
ars of his life. The three older boys (Youbensli, Williamson, Wilgens) did suffer emotional traumas from their mom dying, but they have made huge progress in working through it. Each dealt with it differently and at different t
imes but they have all seemingly processed what happened in their own ways at this point and are as happy as we have known t
hem to be since meeting them in 2011. All four got bikes for Christmas. Nelson had a tricycle that he just loved and went straight to a two-wheel, big bike. When he got his trike he literally wouldn’t even eat that first day, he went to bed at 10:30 instead of his usual 7pm, and was up by 4am to go ride some more. This new bike was a bit more intimidating, but by day three he could keep going if you pushed him and let go. In his opinion, he was able to accomplish this feat of riding a bike because of his “gwo bibit” (big muscles); he is not shy in expressing this opinion. All four are doing well in the English-French bilingual school, which is run by Americans. It went a bit slower than we thought, but they are all making big strides of late. We moved to a house closer to the foundation and beach, so now the boys and their JRF buddies are able to fish on the regular and enjoy the ocean.
This year at the JRF we will be focusing on continuing to improve our curriculum, our children’s performance in school and offer more to local kids. We can offer some local kids classes at the JRF, but our capacity to do that is confined by our classroom space and teachers. We think a better way to grow and help the poorest around is through scholarship assistance, food aid and, of course, employment through Good Threads. To date, the JRF has added ten local children and pay for another ten children’s tuition at the same Catholic school that the JRF kids attend. The ten children whose tuition we pay are academically gifted children from poor families that the school identified. We hope to do more to find and help children like this now that we will not have any building expenses. We are also big believers in simple good and feeding hungry kids is a perfect example of that. Once our finances stabilize this year we will definitely expand our feeding program in some way. Good Threads at its peak had about 150 locals employed (not counting JRF parents), we have backed off that but in 2017 we sold 4.5x more than we sold in 2015 and about 2x more than we sold in 2016. People’s desperation for a decent job and the opportunity to work hard is both inspiring and depressing. Inspiring because through our own success we can give them that opportunity, and depressing because they are currently literally on their hands and knees praying, every day, for the chance to work hard to provide for their families and most are not getting it.
Together we have made a massive difference in our people’s lives and together we will continue to provide impoverished individuals with the opportunity to work hard to improve their lives. As always thank you all for your continued support, none of this would be possible without you.
