Earthquake Spurs Community Funds to Step Up Aid to Haitians in the United States

Shortly after the earthquake hit Haiti, the Boston Foundation got a call from a longtime donor offering to match up to $1-million in gifts to a new Haiti fund. Donors in the New England city, home to the country’s third-largest population of Haitian Americans, met that goal in less than a month.

A handful of other community foundations have been making similar appeals to help local immigrants and earthquake victims in Haiti.

One quarter of the money raised by the Boston Foundation will help provide immediate relief; the rest is earmarked for longer-term needs.

Karen Ansara, the philanthropist who inspired the fund, and her husband, Jim, will help make decisions about how to spend the money. The Ansaras are longtime supporters of international causes, and Mr. Ansara, who made a fortune in the construction business, traveled to Haiti to help a few days after the earthquake.

Officials at the foundation see the fund as a way to “support and raise the visibility of the Haitian community” in Boston, says David Trueblood, a spokesman. The fund-raising drive kicked off with an event at which a New York Times reporter spoke via telephone from Port-au-Prince to describe the needs and relief efforts. Tracy Kidder, a journalist known for his writing on Haiti, spoke at a second event.

While most of the money will help organizations working in Haiti, a smaller percentage will go to local groups. Of the $195,000 in grants already awarded, $15,000 went to Catholic Charities Boston to help Haitians file for “temporary protective status,” which allows them to stay in the United States for a year and a half.

New York Haitians

Nonprofit leaders in New York City, meanwhile, are focusing specifically on the effects of the earthquake on the area’s 130,000 Haitians and Haitian Americans.

The Brooklyn Community Foundation and the United Way of New York City have created a fund to provide legal aid, grief counseling, education, and other assistance to Haitians. Many Haitians have been asking for help in filing for temporary protective status, says Marilyn Gelber, the foundation’s president. She sees demands for other kinds of legal aid and assistance growing and straining small community groups.

“We saw the best role for us as strengthening the capacity of Haitian community organizations here,” she says.

Her foundation and the local United Way each contributed $100,000; three other donors have given a total of $50,000. They will also be seeking additional money, although Ms. Gelber says that may be a challenge given the attention focused internationally. The fund has set a $1-million goal.

Assistance in Florida

Southern Florida, home to more Haitians than any other part of the country, has also seen more Haitians asking for help. Roughly 700 Haitian children have enrolled in Broward County public schools since the earthquake, says Nancy Jones, chief communications officer at the Community Foundation of Broward, in Ft. Lauderdale. That includes a mix of young people who were in the United States before the earthquake struck and those who have come since.

She sees the need for legal and counseling services growing as more Haitians seek to stay in the United States. Her fund is working with other local nonprofit groups to decide how to help.

In places like Brooklyn, home to more than 80,000 Haitians, it has long been clear that the impact of January’s earthquake would extend beyond the borders of Haiti. “I don’t see how you can be a community foundation and ignore what’s happening to 86,000 of your citizens,” says Ms. Gelber of the Brooklyn Community Foundation.