---

From 8-10-2008

 

 

 

---

Earlier this summer

D ear friends, 

The school year has closed in Haiti and we are putting our final numbers together.  We will analyze each school and district's attendance, costs, total fed, discounts by vendors, expenses paid by others like the school or parents, etc.  Keith Logan and I, the program administrators, and Laurent Lophane, our supervisor/manager in Haiti will spend a lot of time analyzing these numbers and planning how our programs can be more efficient.  After we have reached conclusions on we can make these improvements we will plan a course of action and present it to all our feeding program directors and district presidents at the August Workshop.

 

This workshop is one of our best tools.  Last year two of our sessions were "Save a Penny" and "Negotiating to Win."  It is so much fun to be able to present challenging topics like these (very much like those presented in business workshops in the US) to our group of feeding program directors and district presidents.  It is also fun to see them accepting more and more ownership not only for seeing the programs are run well and reports are submitted on time, but also for their ownership in things like cost control.  I marvel at how far we have come.  The feeding programs directors and the district presidents used to think of the programs as those of Trinity/HOPE, now they think of them as programs that belong to all of us.

 

It was a hoot last year to be teaching them negotiation techniques.  This is a strange concept in their culture.  They haggle a little but it had never even occurred to them to negotiate with our vendors as partners...with our giving them constant consistent orders for food, prompt payment (in some cases the vendor gets his money from us before he even pays for the goods) and checks that are always good and in turn getting discounts and concessions from them.  Some of our feeding program directors caught the vision quickly and are getting regular discounts and other concessions like the vendor transporting the food from his business to the place where we disburse it.  This year Lophane, who has had remarkable success in negotiating, will teach an advanced session in practical negotiations.

 

Last year Keith really caught their imagination with Save a Penny by demonstrating just how many more children we could feed if we just saved a penny per meal.  They really went to work and got individuals and businesses to allow them to use the internet and make copies of their reports free.  Where there were still costs involved they have gotten communities and schools to pay some of these expenses.  One feeding program director has gotten a pastor, who is also the principal of a school [which we do not yet feed] to pay for all of his visits to the schools we do feed.  On top of this, most of the feeding program directors have now become donors to the efforts to feed the children and personally contribute by often paying some portion of the program's expenses of their district personally.

 

The total of these efforts is usually about $200 per month and provides the cost of the meals for 36 children.  This is great and it really makes me proud to be a part of a team whose stateside team and the Haitian team are both so dedicated to making the programs all they can be.  I never like to go to Haiti [I love the work we do there but the trips aren't my favorite.] but I can truly say I look forward to this workshop and being with these guys who are so eager to make what we do a success.

 

This year in May our attendance reached an all time high. We served 8051 meals daily this month.  We are budgeting an increase in attendance of only 5% for the 2008-2009 school year.  The economy is so poor in Haiti that attendance is less than it should be because some families parents simply can not afford to send their children to school.  Last year we forecasted that each meal would cost us $.225.  At the end of the school year our meals were costing $.25.  We anticipate that the escalating cost will take the price of the meals we serve next year to an average of $.295 per meal.  This will be a huge increase in dollars needed for Trinity/HOPE just to maintain its current feeding programs and while we just trust God to provide, we know that these increases may curtail our ability to serve additional children in the coming year.  However, the even greater issue is that these new costs severely impact the amount of food families can buy for meals at home.  Our programs now become more important and necessary than ever.

 

All this makes it even more important for us to make new contacts and be able to make presentations to new groups.  If your mission minded friends, congregation or groups are not connected to our work, please help us make this connection so more children can be fed.  Our expanding to new schools has always depended on two things: Getting the people in Haiti trained to handle additional schools and the availability of funds.  At this moment we have people in Haiti trained and in place to effectively oversee 16 new schools.  God who is Jehovah Jireah always provides.  He will do so again through those who serve him.

 

There is no new news on the Food for the Poor or LCMS World Relief fronts but we continue to work toward establishing helpful relationships with them.

 

Our board meets August 9th to consider next year's opportunities and to approve the 2008-2009 School Year Budget.  Please keep these deliberations and its work in your prayers.  Also we have having a Haitian Night in Hermitage to celebrate the work God has given us and to honor some of our many volunteers.  It is August 8th at Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Hermitage, TN.  It begins at 6:30pm and will be an evening devoted to celebrating, honoring our volunteers and raising the funds to feed the children at a small new school in the Artibonite District called Bois Marchard.  We will also have entertainment and a meal of all Haitian food.

 

Each of you are invited.

 

Blessings,

 

 John