MONTREAL — Jewish Montrealers have responded with extraordinary generosity and compassion to the catastrophe suffered by Haiti, said Federation CJA executive director Andres Spokoiny. Contributions to CJA relief fund rose rapidly in the second week after the Jan. 12 earthquake to nearly $250,000 by last Friday.
Elementary schoolchildren at Solomon Schechter Academy raised $3,000 for Haiti relief through a “free dress day.” Federation CJA executive director Andres Spokoiny, centre background, visited the school to accept their cheque. From left are principal Shimshon Hamerman and student council members Chloe Gordon, Jonathan Elfassy, Ariella Reuben, Arie Pesner and Gabriel Mashaal. [Vadim Daniel photo]
MONTREAL —
Jewish Montrealers have responded with extraordinary generosity and
compassion to the catastrophe suffered by Haiti, said Federation CJA
executive director Andres Spokoiny. Contributions to CJA relief fund
rose rapidly in the second week after the Jan. 12 earthquake to nearly
$250,000 by last Friday.
Elementary schoolchildren at Solomon Schechter Academy raised $3,000
for Haiti relief through a “free dress day.” Federation CJA executive
director Andres Spokoiny, centre background, visited the school to
accept their cheque. From left are principal Shimshon Hamerman and
student council members Chloe Gordon, Jonathan Elfassy, Ariella Reuben,
Arie Pesner and Gabriel Mashaal. [Vadim Daniel photo]
“Proportionally, this is better than the general population or other North American Jewish communities,” he said. “There is a really big outpouring of solidarity. The whole community is in a way mobilized. We have really been overwhelmed by the number of calls and offers we have received.”
The money has come from about 1,200 donors.
By the end of last week, about $100,000 had been distributed equally to the Canadian Red Cross, the Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) and the Montreal-based ONEXONE Foundation, selected because they are contributing to on-the-ground work in Haiti, he said.
The JDC is collaborating with Heart to Heart International to provide medical aid and equipment to earthquake victims, and has also been working with an Israeli medical team that set up a field hospital. ONEXONE, which was founded by Montrealer Joey Adler, delivered medical and other urgently needed supplies to Haiti on Jan. 16. Adler, CEO of Diesel Canada, a designer jeans manufacturer, accompanied that transport and saw the devastation first-hand during a brief visit.
Aldo Groupe, the shoe retailer, has chosen to make its corporate donation, described as major, to the federation’s relief fund, and is matching the contributions of its head office staff. Spokoiny said a number of other businesses are funnelling their gifts through the federation.
On a smaller scale, students at several Jewish schools have held fundraising projects, he said, and the federation’s Campus and FedNext divisions organized a benefit bowl-a-thon Jan. 27. About 100 cegep and university students and other volunteers, paying $20 each, were expected.
The federation’s support is not only financial. Members of its doctors’ division, the Maimonides Society, are ready to organize medical professionals who want to travel to Haiti, in co-operation with the Jewish General Hospital (JGH), which has been waiting for the go-ahead from Canadian and Quebec aid agencies.
On Friday, the JGH announced that a group of its nurses were about to leave for Haiti to volunteer in medical facilities.
Although it’s not sponsoring the mission, the JGH assisted the nurses by rearranging work schedules and granting unpaid leaves of absence to expedite their departure. Many nurses who stayed behind donated their shifts to enable the volunteers to leave promptly.
The JGH and its foundation worked with ONEXONE and the Claudine and Stephen Bronfman Family Foundation to facilitate travel and other arrangements for the nurses. They were to fly aboard a flight donated by Air Canada out of Toronto.
On Jan. 16, the airline also transported free of charge 400 boxes of medical supplies donated by the JGH, also in co-operation with ONEXONE.
“This effort is consistent with the values and practices that the JGH has championed since the day it opened – to care for all by helping anyone in need, regardless of religion, nationality or ethnic background,” said JGH executive director Dr. Hartley Stern.
Volunteers from the federation joined with the Sun Youth Organization to receive people arriving from Haiti at Trudeau Airport, Spokoiny said, and the federation’s social services agency, Ometz, offered to work with Maison d’Haiti to provide counseling to those who have been traumatized by the disaster.
This outreach may help build bridges between the Jewish community and Montreal’s 100,000-member Haitian community, the largest in Canada, Spokoiny noted.
He added that the need in Haiti will continue for a long time, even if the catastrophe doesn’t dominate the news.
The federation continues to encourage donations through its website at www.federationcja.org, or by calling 345-2600. The federal government will match donations by Canadians up to $50 million.
“We have to keep the eyes of the world on this country. We cannot let people forget,” said Adler, who founded ONEXONE in 2005.
ONEXONE – which provides aid to people, especially children, in dire poverty in Africa and Haiti mostly – is giving priority to health and educational projects. Its chair is former New Brunswick premier and ambassador to Washington Frank McKenna, now an executive of TD Bank.
Adler visited Haiti after the flood in 2008, but was not prepared for the scale of the devastation and human suffering this time. She still has difficulty talking about what she saw.
ONEXONE’s first shipment consisted of tens of thousands of pounds of medical supplies, water, tents, sleeping bags and flashlights, made possible by contributions from Canadian corporations and organizations, which were distributed mainly through the onsite relief agency Partners in Health. A second shipment is being planned.