Personal Tales of Haitian Kids Help Raise Funds to Send Them to Camp

Vanessa Vellard, a lanky 14-year-old who lost five friends in the Haiti earthquake, gets to spend the next few weeks at a New York summer camp, thanks to a fund-raising campaign that worked because it personalized her story and those of other young Haitians.

The YMCA of Greater New York hired a freelance journalist to spend time with Haitian teenagers at its Port-au-Prince affiliate. The reporter turned those interviews into short biographies that the charity presented to potential donors on its Web site and on Facebook. Vanessa’s biography ran with the headline: “Give Vanessa a Month to Make New Friends This Summer at Camp.”

An aspiring pediatrician, Vanessa says in the story that she’s “curious to see if Americans like people from other places,” and she’s excited to visit museums so she can “come back and teach my friends here.”

Her biography runs with two portrait shots that show Vanessa, her hair pulled back in a tight pony tail, standing by a rickety red door.

The two-and-a-half-month “Cabins of Hope” campaign raised about $30,000, enough to send 10 campers to the 1,100-acre overnight camp in Huguenot, N.Y.

UnitedHealth Group provided the largest cash gift, $8,800. Continental Airlines covered the cost of the campers’ flights, and Target provided gift cards for each youth.

New Yorkers, including many members of Brooklyn’s Haitian community, held bake sales and other grassroots fund-raising events. The charity raised more than $1,000 through its Facebook page.

All told, the campaign cost the charity about $1,000.

Paperwork a Challenge

While the YMCA of Greater New York was pleased with its $30,000 haul, initially it had hoped to raise enough to bring 20 campers from Haiti. The group estimated at first that it would need to spend $3,500 per teenager, but it managed to reduce the cost to $3,000.

Yet Gary Laermer, senior vice president and chief development officer at the New York group, says fund raising didn’t prove to be the program’s biggest challenge.

Securing visas and other paperwork for the young people was very difficult, he says. Many of the kids lacked birth certificates and other paperwork, and Mr. Laermer says he worried at times that the camp program was in jeopardy.

Fortunately, the YMCA was able to schedule a last-minute appointment at the U.S. consulate in Haiti and secure visas for all the young people, although some of the campers had to push back their start date by a week because of the delays.

“We count ourselves pretty fortunate that we were able to achieve our objectives,” says Mr. Laermer.

While the Haitian youths swim, canoe, paint, and enjoy other adventures at the camp, one of their chaperones from Haiti will have a more academic experience.

Alberte Pierre Louis, a volunteer at the Y in Port-au-Prince, will be learning fund-raising skills and tips from members of the YMCA of Greater New York’s development staff.