On my recent trip to Haiti, I was blessed to be able to start a new program that will provide a hot lunch to nearly 550 students at Good Samaritan Community School in Anse-a-Pitre, Haiti each and every day of the school week. This represents more than 11,000 hot lunches a month.  The school lunch program is possible because of your generous support of Barco’s Nightingales Foundation and through the personal support of Doug Kanner, who is also an avid supporter of Ronald McDonald House Charities.
Good Samaritan Community School, constructed and supported by Hispaniola Mountain Ministries, opened in October 2012 with about 400 students.  Today, it has nearly 550 students and the school day has been split in order to accommodate the growth.  Classes are held in the morning for one group and then a second group arrives during lunch.

This fall, Delince Cenat, a Hispaniola Mountain Ministries translator and teacher for one class at the school, started teaching English classes. These classes have grown to the point where they recently had to separate the students with a proficiency exam to better serve the students’ individual aptitudes and abilities. It was an unexpected treat to meet the children learning English. They are such a great group of young people wanting to get ahead in life.  We believe the school will continue to grow and with the addition of more classrooms in the future. 
Our visit to the school showed us what a tremendous opportunity our participation was to serve the people of Anse-a-Pitre.  We spent nearly two hours with the school children at the end of our second day in Haiti. It was a thrill watching them, and seeing them learn, enjoy the lunches, and constantly drink water provided by one of the solar water wells our foundation constructed.
We also visited a school near the border of the Dominican Republic, in Pedernales.  During this visit, Phil Little and his wife Vicky of Hispaniola Mountain Ministries, Denisse Casales of Barco Uniforms, and I went to two different classes.  This was the school and the class that our dear friend Raphael, who is leading the way on building our solar water wells, attended as a youth. The students would ask us Americans questions that they had on their mind. It was a great question and answer forum.  We learned some amazing things from several if the students. All in all this moment on our visit to Haiti was amazing.

We are so blessed to help these children.  We hope you enjoy learning about them and seeing the impact your continued support can make.
Best,
Michael and Frida Donner