- We currently provide a healthy lunch to over 650 children a Monday-Saturday.
- We pay private school tuition for over 250 children.
- We provide tutoring and extra curricular classes for over 100 children
- We have always spent all of our donations on operations. Some administrative expenses are unavoidable (tax filing fees, wire transfer fees, etc) but we have never paid a US based employee or had a substantial administrative expense. We spend everything we are given in Haiti and do not invest or hold cash reserves.
- We have saved at least 3 children’s lives. In each case we helped diagnose that the child was seriously ill and paid for medical treatments that would otherwise have been out of the families reach
- Our sister business employs over 1000 men and women with a well-paying job. It has donated over $100,000 USD to the JRF to date.
- We have helped several children become the first in their family to graduate from high school and helped several attend University. We have also helped graduates who were not destined for college to start small businesses and achieve marketable skills and training. We are hopeful that we will be able to send some graduates to the US to work and study in 2024.
- We have been a source of good in our community and a safe space for our children for 14 years. We are every bit as committed to our goal as we were in 2010 and know that we will continue to help our children thrive.
Some Individual Success Stories
Wadson- Wadson and Yobanny are brothers that lived in the ghetto that I moved to in 2010 when I was first doing research about opening a non profit foundation. Both have achieved success but for the sake of brevity I will focus on Wadson. They were super poor, their mother was not in the picture, their father was a bit of a degenerate and their step mother saw them as competition for resources that could go to her own children. Wadson had charisma, an infectious smile, optimistic outlook and was a total hustler in the best sense of the word. Wadson is now about 22, has two children, both of which he takes care of, a car he rents out to tourists in the DR, a steady job and is close to finishing his high school diploma at night school. We are extremely proud of Wadson. For a Haitian child in the DR who was homeless before the age of 12, whose mom died before he was 15 and came from a family where few had ever finished school to be where he is, is a true testament to the influence the foundation can have on our children.
Maria Celeste– Maria Celeste joined the foundation in late 2010, her brother had been in the foundation from day 1. She was about 12 at the time, she was already in school and very smart. Her brother died in 2013 unexpectedly and unnecessarily and it rocked their family. That motivated her to be a pediatrician so she could help young boys like her brother and she is on the precipice of realizing that dream. She was Dominican and so did not come with the foundation when we moved in 2015. She got pregnant in late 2013 or early 2014 at the age of 15 or 16. She took a year off school but returned and is now a doctor. We have not done much for her since we left the Dominican Republic. I think she probably would have made it to where she is without us but I certainly think the education and support she found at the foundation helped and we are very proud.
Felina and Yanira- Yanira was also a Dominican who was with us from when we opened our doors that first day to when we left for Haiti. We are paying her expenses for college and have continued to help with her high school expenses over the years. Yanira has a great attitude/head on her shoulders and is a hard worker. She got along with everyone and was genuinely kind. She will start college this January as it was cancelled this fall due to Corona. Felina is a 20 year old Haitian girl. She was with us from 2010 until last year when she moved back to the DR with her mother and sisters. She has missed a year of school due to some paperwork issues but is also on route to attending college in the coming years. She is very smart, responsible, good hearted and motivated. She wants to be a doctor and we will help her with the school costs. Her younger sisters are also on track to attend college in the not too distant future.
Boloko– Boloko started with us in 2011. He was probably 14 at the time and didn’t even know how to hold a pencil. He was generally a happy kid with a great attitude. He was too old to start and finish formal schooling but we did teach him how to read, write and do basic math and enrolled him in night school. His mother and father were not in the picture so when we moved to Haiti he came with us but without any parents. I am not sure exactly when he started working at the JRF but it was either right before or right after we moved. He got fired once by Catherine but got brought back a few months later. He still works at the foundation and does a great job managing the kids, maintenance and overall supervision. He fixes up motorcycles and sells them on the side to make extra money and also stitches for GT. He is another example of someone who has done better than 99.9% of the children who were in similar situations to his at 13 year old.
