Diane

Diane McMutrie always knew she wanted to be a mother, and since becoming one more than thirty years ago, has never wavered in her commitment to helping her four children grow into kind, caring, and strong individuals. The mother of our co-presidents, Jamie and Ali, Diane couldn’t be prouder of her three grown children who, she says, have become all that she expected and more than she could have hoped for. As Jamie, Ali, and their brother have grown into adulthood, Diane has had to do what all great parents do: let go and realize you can’t always fix things for your children. Looking back, she thought her most bittersweet moments would be the milestones in her children’s lives: the first day she sent each of them off to school, the first time she watched her oldest (Jamie) drive the family van by herself.

But Diane has had to do something else many mothers do not: see her daughters move from the comforts of a life in the U.S. to the challenging but rewarding life of serving others in Haiti. Knowing that her daughters are doing the work they were meant to do—she recalls a nine-year old Jamie spending hours helping to care for her infant sister, Ali—Diane has embraced her daughters’ choice to dedicate themselves to Haiti’s poorest children.

And since adopting a little Haitian boy once in her daughters’ care, Diane says she has a new zest for life and a renewed appreciation of what is really important to her. She’s been inspired by the mothers in Haiti she’s encountered: mothers who parent without any of the comforts she has known and, worse still, mothers who decide not to raise their children in order to give them a better life. Seeing Jamie and Ali prevent that sacrifice—seeing them help mothers to keep their children—is, as she puts it, one of “THE coolest things” about her own life as a mother.

Claemane

One day in February, HFF received a call from a pediatrician about a boy who had been left at a hospital. As often happens when they are asked to consult on such cases, they arrived at the hospital to find the boy severely malnourished and dehydrated, weighing just 11 pounds at over two years of age. And as they always do in these situations, HFF staff set out to try to find the child’s family.

It didn’t take them long. Agonized by her choice, Claemane had abandoned her son, Edanson, after months of searching for help for him for what she believed was an illness. But she couldn’t bring herself to go too far away from the hospital where she’d left him, desperately hoping to hear news that he’d received help. A single mother who, like so many Haitians, cannot find steady employment, Claemane struggled to feed Edanson and his younger sister, Nashka, and when her son went from being a happy toddler to a sick little boy no longer able to walk, she felt she had no option but to rely on the strangers at the hospital for help. She loved Edanson, but she gave him up in the hope of saving him. When HFF staff first met her, Claeamane was overcome by her concerns for her own health and especially that of her children. Her anxiety and her struggle to raise her children were overwhelming her so much that, when she finally did find help through HFF’s “breastfeeding moms” program, she thought it was too good to be true. But the program is teaching her about proper nutrition in addition to providing her and the children with food and vitamins, and Claemane and her children are doing better.

Of course, she is still very poor and will continue to struggle to give her children even the very basic things they need to grow. But for the first time, she is able to take pride in being a mother. And for the first time, she is able to find joy in her children: in watching Edanson take his first wobbly steps since becaming sick; in the sound of Nashka’s laugh when she kisses her daughter’s stomach. These are the kinds of moments we all live for, and thanks to a little help from HFF, Claemane can now experience them.

Madame Michel

Madame Michel faced the thing every parent dreads the most: the death of her child, a daughter, who left behind her own daughter, Sednika. Together with her other daughter, Madame Michel was dedicated to raising Sednika, but, formula being too expensive for many Haitians, she was struggling to keep her properly fed. On the day HFF staff met Madame Michel, she had taken Sednika to the hospital, where someone had advised her to relinquish her granddaughter. She refused, unable to even entertain the notion of a separation from Sednika. “I love her and she loves me,” she responded, “I just need to find out how I can make her better.”

HFF was able to provide Madame Michel with the help she needed, enrolling Sednika in our formula program and giving the same information about proper nutrition and health to her grandmother we give Claemane and so many other mothers. With the help of The Road to Hope, HFF also provided Madame Michel, a farmer, with seeds, which HFF supplemented with fertilizer and farming equipment. She is growing onions, okra, and tomatoes, which she shares with HFF staff and, when she has an especially good yield on a crop, with other mothers in our programs.

Still small, Sednika is getting stronger and is thriving in the love of her grandmother. Each week when HFF staff visits Sednika with Jamie’s trusty scale, Madame Michel waits anxiously to hear how much her granddaughter weighs, and literally dances for joy when she hears that she’s gained a few ounces. She says that she and Sednika make a great team. We couldn’t agree more.

Jamie rarely makes demands, and when she does, she often prefaces them by saying: “I don’t mean to be a pain, but . . .” She’s strong for a variety of reasons, but mostly because she gives a lot of herself and asks so little of us.

So when she asked me to do something—now—I knew well enough to listen. And what I heard was a story, new to HFF, about a 17-month old girl, Ylionise, with a congenital heart condition called VSD that would, in her case, prove deadly. She needed a surgery she couldn’t get in Haiti, which meant she needed a medical visa to leave the country as well as a doctor and a hospital elsewhere willing to donate their services. Jamie had heard from a staff member of a hospital she regularly visits that Ylionise’s mother, Gertha, and her father, Ylionel, already spent their meager savings getting their daughter medical tests. After months of watching their daughter get sicker and sicker, they were getting desperate. The only help that had been offered to them involved relinquishing Ylionise to an orphanage that, after the surgery, would place her for adoption outside of Haiti.

We wanted to give Ylionise and her family another option. But Jamie and our staff in Haiti knew little about how to obtain a medical visa, and none of us knew to whom we might turn for help with getting the medical staff and resources we would need. We did know that, as a young organization, we couldn’t afford to provide much financial assistance. “Do you think we could do this?” Jamie and I asked one another. That question implied another, more daunting one we didn’t ask out loud: what if we can’t?

But, as it turned out, we could, with a lot of help. One of our board members, Lynn Lebowitz, contacted a friend who’s involved with Patrons of the HeARTs, a Florida-based organization that evaluates and treats children like Ylionise with congenital heart defects. Patrons found an incredibly generous sponsor, K. Fehling & Associates, to fund Ylionise’s medical costs. They also connected us to a Jacksonville-area family, the Gabets, who opened their home and their hearts to Ylionise and Gertha while they are in the United States. In Pittsburgh, Team Tassy helped with the visa process. Haitians, most especially Claude Raymond, Director of Immigration, were as eager as Americans to help the family, and together with U.S. embassy officials, they made it possible for mother and daughter to travel to the U.S.

Most of all, it was Gertha’s and Ylionel’s devotion to their daughter, their determination to give her a chance to live, that made what seemed impossible a reality. Ylionise had surgery a few weeks ago and is recovering marvelously. She and her mother are almost ready to go home to Ylionel and Ylionise’s sister, Seralda, in Haiti. Someone asked, “what if,” and a lot of people came together to answer. And a child’s life is saved. And a family stays a family.

Shortly after we started working on Ylionise’s case, Partners in Health and a pediatrician in Haiti told us about another child, Junior, who, like Ylionise, needs help. Junior is a 12-year old boy who needs heart surgery for a condition he contracted by a fever when he was two. He will die soon, we have been told, if he does not get the kind of help Ylionise received. Generous as a child, Junior has told Jamie that he is glad such a small girl as Ylionise will no longer have to face death from a heart condition, as he does. He celebrates Ylionise’s new lease on life, and might be happy with his own fate knowing that she will survive. We would not be.

We don’t know how we can help Junior. But we know what will happen if we don’t.

–Jean Griffith, Executive Director

There are, for example, HFF’s employees, volunteers, and colleagues in Haiti with whom HFF partners. There’s Junia, HFF staff person extraordinaire, whose efforts to help other families, let alone her efforts to help herself, her birth children, and her soon-to-be adopted child, are nothing short of heroic. And there’s Sherry, who has been brave enough to let a painful past inspire her to help others get involved in HFF’s work. Board member and “professional volunteer” Vivian Croft has described how touched she was to visit Jamie and Ali in Haiti, even though she has traveled widely and been involved with many other volunteer organizations. Another volunteer, Ross, also describes a visit to Haiti, where he learned some valuable lessons about HFF’s work (not to mention the value of a good set of tires).

We’ve seen how people from around the U.S. have been inspired by Jamie and Ali’s dedication to the children of Haiti. We’ve witnessed the enormous outpouring of love and respect adoptive parents from all over the world feel for the McMutrie sisters and the appreciation they have for the care Jamie and Ali gave their children.

And we have seen glimpses of the insides of a Haitian hospital’s maternity and pediatric wards, where directors, doctors, and nurses work with HFF staff to care for children and bring hope to families.

What we also see in those videos, of course, are glimpses of the faces of those we work for: a single father struggling to feed his infant son even as he mourns the loss of his wife; a little boy lovingly receiving medical treatment; a mother and a family receiving a few seeds and a new chance for a better life.

I am deeply humbled by these stories, by how many difference lives, world views, and circumstances they encompass, by the sheer amount of miles that separate them. And I am in awe at what brings them together.

There is one story—just one—that made all of these others possible. Over a decade ago, a very young woman in her early twenties got on a plane bound for Port-au-Prince. She had no solid plans for herself once she arrived, didn’t know how long she’d stay, and did not really know what she’d find once she got there. She had little money and fewer connections. All she really had was a love of children, a hatred of poverty, and a vision of a better world.

Except for the occasional visit to her family, she’s never left. Jamie has learned a great deal since then, of course, as has her sister, Ali. They have endured hurricanes and an earthquake as well as the pain of having to watch many children suffer and many families be torn apart. But a few things have not changed. They still work tirelessly and mostly thanklessly. They are just as dedicated to Haiti’s children and to a vision of a better world as they were over a decade ago.

And, although Jamie won’t like me telling you this because she’s still too unpretentious to take a complement, we continue to be inspired by them.

–Jean Griffith, Executive Director, Haitian Families First

Believe in the work of Haitian Families First and yearn to help, but aren’t sure what li’l ol’ folks like you and I can do? That was exactly my question when I was given the reassuring answer–“Any little thing will help!”

So, that’s precisely where we began–with a small idea from my husband Chad, a high-school coach, to dub an upcoming home basketball game “Hoops for Haiti” night. After checking for approval from our building principal and the head coach of the team we would play, T-shirts were ordered and public service announcements written. Then, friends decided a banner would lend legitimacy to the atmosphere, and they covered the cost and delivery. Another friend, who works in the non-profit world, disseminated a press release, and two different papers and a pair of radio stations came calling.

That was it.

Net profit from T-shirt sales totaled a surprising $1,200, and an additional $800 was given in unsolicited donations–several of which were $100 or more each. Providing an outlet for people’s desire to help is all we did, and the community stepped forward with a deep interest and generous hearts.

Having done one fundraiser, we could easily decide that our work is done, at least for now. But support and enthusiasm from our community keep coming in beautifully unexpected ways. Two days after mailing off the proceeds from “Hoops for Haiti,” a former student approached me with a $70 donation.

So, because of the palpable enthusiasm of our local community surrounding this cause, as well as the hunger Chad and I have for healing from our unusual adoption journey, we are forging ahead with our work. My friends suggested that I form a local fundraising committee, and all dozen women of different personalities and talents whom I invited to join replied with warmth and energy. So onward we go to approaching civic organizations and large corporations, sending out small business mailings, and conducting follow-up radio interviews and newspaper stories.

To get you started on your own “any little thing,” perhaps consider selecting a comfortable task or two from the list below. If you wish to contact me, I’ll gladly share with you tips I’ve learned and samples we’ve created along our grassroots journey.

• Add your email address as a show of moral support to bolster the viability of HFF’s grant applications (www.HaitianFamiliesFirst.org  “Stay Informed About Our Work”).
• Like HFF on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.
• Invite others on-line to check out the webpage, to add their email address, and to like HFF on Facebook.
• Talk with your family, friends, neighbors, and coworkers about HFF.
• Discuss support activities in your church, businesses, and civic organizations.
• Plan a simple event.
• Invite the media to tell the story of HFF as it relates to your family.
• Offer to be a guest speaker to a variety of civic organizations and churches in your area.
• Research and network to connect with large corporations where you live to make inquiry about donations, partnerships, and grant applications.
• Make a tax-deductible donation and invite others to do so, too.
• Do a mass mailing to small businesses in your area.
• Conceptualize an innovative idea of your own inspiration!

Family preservation makes good, plain sense to people, and it’s easy to support an organization that operates without overhead–frugal, smart, and dignified. It takes only small steps to get that sort of word to spread and the inspiration to catch on.

Sherry Cluver, proud supporter of Haitian Families First

cs95cluver@sbcglobal.net

“Love Bears All Things:” These words are framed and displayed on a shelf in our family room. Alongside them are two photographs: one of four children (our birth kids, Hunter and Baylor, and the two young ones we believed would become their siblings) and another of our American family standing alongside our prospective adoptive children and their birth parents.

The hollow eyes and drenched cheeks of the disrupted Haitian family now speak clearly to what Chad and I didn’t yet realize.

The paperwork had been properly signed for over a year before we met these children.  Yet their birth parents were equivocating on their decision, and on the night of the quake, they retrieved their kids from the orphanage.  The grief through which we journeyed pales in comparison to the anguish the parents surely suffered.  And our collective pain must be a mere shadow of the hurt in the children.

International adoption is a beautifully challenging choice for adoptive families and for the children who need families, and we’ve been blessed with Anna and Jameson, a different sibling pair—truly in need of an adoptive family—who were airlifted to safety by our friends, Jamie and Ali McMutrie  .  .  .

“Thank you, Jamie and Ali; you have done a miracle for us to get us out of Haiti where it was dangerous (after the quake).  I really like the way that you keeping the family in Haiti stay with their kids instead of leaving to goes to orphanage, and I’m sure that makes them really happy.  That makes me happy, too.  I’ll never forget what you did for us after the quake – it was really brave and nice of you guys.  God will bless you guys and keep you safe, because you have done such really nice things that makes a lot of people in Haiti so happy.”  –Anna Cluver, 6^th grade

I find Anna and Jameson’s progress with spoken English remarkable, considering I am able to utilize only my native tongue of English, and their ability to adapt to American culture and family life impressive.  It’s a great deal of work–for them and for us.  To leave one’s homeland, comfort zone, heritage, food . . . overwhelming.  To work through the loss of a mother or a father or both, a life’s long journey, and parenting children through these battles is not for the faint of heart.  It’s rewarding, no doubt, but because it is difficult.

International adoption is not a good first option for children, nor a second, nor third.

I can’t know with certainty what brought the family of our first adoption match to an orphanage those few years ago.  I feel confidently that if they were able to change course without any offer of aid that it would not have taken much to have provided a meager hand-up on the front end.

To have substituted empowerment for pain. 

I’ve loved my birth children since before they were born, and our adoptive children and I have grown in love with each other, and it is good–we’re becoming whole.

The children who we believed to be “ours,” but were not–I love them still, and my work for putting Haitian families first is the best way I know to give of myself for them.

It was an unforgettable moment. And one that I feel incredibly privileged to have been a part of.

Alex first came into my life through photos. Ross and I worked together at a small software company in Wichita, Kansas. As he and Jean navigated the lengthy and often challenging journey of adopting a child from Haiti, Ross would provide updates to our team and share photos after each of their trips. We learned about Haitian culture, the people, the food, the travel, the government and the orphanage where Alex lived. We learned about Jamie and Ali McMutrie, two American women dedicated to the children at the orphanage and to the families going through the adoption process.

On January 12, 2010, the unthinkable happened. As news of the earthquake in Haiti spread across the internet, I was paralyzed at my desk. I remember Ross making phone call after phone call, waiting for news. We were all barely holding it together. Until Alex, Haiti was just a faraway place to me. But now, it was a little boy. It was an orphanage full of children. It was a country full of people in utter devastation. And the tears began to fall.

The worst part was the feeling of helplessness. If only I could fly down there, I thought, racking my brain for a way to DO SOMETHING. I’m not very good at being idle. So I did what I knew how to do. I took to the Internet.

I blogged about the earthquake and shared the story of the orphanage online. And then I took that message to Twitter. It started small, but soon I was a part of a large community of people using social media to spread the word about what was happening in Haiti. Led by Pittsburgh journalist Virginia Montanez, whose blog became our main source of information, we were loud and difficult to ignore and we were committed to using technology at a time when we couldn’t physically provide aid. It was our collective noise that eventually led to a CNN crew bringing water and supplies to the orphanage. It was that noise that helped drive the rescue mission that brought the kids to the U.S., where they received care and, for many, the chance to be reunited with their adoptive families. And it’s that noise that continues to champion for the people of Haiti and provide support to Jamie and Ali.

My experience that January proved that even behind my keyboard, I could still make a difference.

When I sat in that courtroom a few months later and watched Alex with his new parents, my heart swelled. It still does every time I see a new set of photos of him on Facebook, laughing and playing, dressing up for Halloween or digging into a birthday cake. His life is so full and so rich and he is so very loved.

Now, when I hear about Haiti and I read about the work of Haitian Families First, I don’t see a faraway island. I see a little boy. And I see hope.

–Shea Sylvia is a Senior Social Media Strategist for MMGY Global. You can read more about Shea at her blog, That’s What Shea Said.