Lynn University students rough it, paying tribute to friends’ legacies and the poor

For the fourth consecutive year, members of Lynn University’s student organization Students For The Poor will construct a tent city on campus to call attention to the desperate living conditions of those who remain homeless in Haiti, on Thursday, April 5, in Perper Plaza, near the center of campus.

Students will pitch tents and build makeshift structures using cardboard, tarps and other scrap materials. Each structure will be judged for creativity, and a prize will be awarded for the best design. Participants may sleep in their hut overnight on April 5 in order to experience what it is like to live in such conditions. Members of other campus organizations to participate include the Black Student Union (BSU), Greek Life, Student Access Program, and additional Lynn students.

“We are hoping that the tent city will give the Lynn Community insight on what it looks and feels like to live in poverty,” said Lindsay Doran, Lynn’s Students For The Poor president.

Several of the club members have traveled to Haiti and/ or Jamaica with the South Florida-based nonprofit Food For The Poor. The on campus activity serves as a special remembrance to honor the students and faculty who traveled on Lynn University’s 2010 J-Term Journey of Hope courses with Food For The Poor. One of the groups arrived a day before the catastrophic earthquake devastated Port-au-Prince, Haiti, instantly claiming hundreds of thousands of lives. Doran is one of the Haiti Journey of Hope survivors.

Considering the impact the Haiti earthquake had on the Lynn University campus, and the recent dedication of Lynn University’s Remembrance Plaza, the Students For The Poor club is prepared to answer questions from their campus community about destitute living conditions in Haiti and Jamaica.

“With the recent dedication of the Remembrance Plaza that memorializes the two professors and four students we lost in the Haiti earthquake two years ago, Students For The Poor thought this was a great way to continue the compassion to help those in Haiti like Dr. Richard Bruno, Dr. Patrick Hartwick, Britney Gengel, Courtney Hayes, Christine Gianacaci, and Stephanie Crispinelli set out to do,” said Doran. “Our group believes it is appropriate to continue their mission of helping the people of Haiti by providing aid to those who continue to suffer from the result of such a catastrophic natural disaster.”

Two years after a 7.0 magnitude earthquake devastated Haiti, some of the Lynn University survivors and friends and families of those who died returned to Haiti. They completed the mission that their loved ones began and inaugurated The Journey of Hope Memorial Village, built by Food For The Poor to celebrate the lives, love and sacrifice of the Lynn University students and faculty, on the two-year anniversary of one of the most devastating earthquakes in the Caribbean nation’s history. Many of the 42 families in The Journey of Hope Memorial Village in Croix-des-Bouquets are earthquake survivors from Cité Soleíl.

For $3,200, Food For The Poor can build a housing unit with sanitation to replace a crumbling shack that leaks when it rains. Since January 2010, Food For The Poor has constructed more than 2,700 two-room homes in Haiti, complete with concrete foundations, locking doors, windows, and a zinc roof with hurricane straps.

To support their effort, make checks out to Food For The Poor and include a special reference number “SC# 64619” so the money can be attributed to Lynn University’s Students For The Poor campaign.

You can learn more about Food For The Poor’s 2012 mission trips by e-mailing missions@foodforthepoor.com. You can also involve your school in Food For The Poor’s mission by calling 1-877-654-2960, ext. 6641 or e-mailing churchschool@foodforthepoor.org.

Food For The Poor, named by The Chronicle of Philanthropy as the largest international relief and development organization in the nation, does much more than feed millions of the hungry poor in 17 countries of the Caribbean and Latin America. This interdenominational Christian ministry provides emergency relief assistance, clean water, medicines, educational materials, homes, support for orphans and the aged, skills training and micro-enterprise development assistance, with more than 96 percent of all donations going directly to programs that help the poor.

For more information, please visit www.FoodForThePoor.org.

Contact:
Jennifer Leigh Oates
Food For The Poor
Public Relations
954-427-2222 x 6054
jennifero@foodforthepoor.com