"Let's continue to work together to make the world a better place," Father Philippe Charles writes in his notes to the Rotary Club of Sunshine, New York. He shared some images and a few video clips of the earlier project, after clothes and food were distributed among a group of destitute people, mostly children, who lack their basic necessities of life in Haiti. This was so that Club members get a feel for what their donation will do.
The clothes were collected and sent by Rotary Club of Sunshine, NY while the food was bought by the money donated by club members. Father Philippe collected the items for despatch to Haiti where the distribution will take place under the supervision of the local Rotary Clubs and the archdiocese.
The Rotary Club of Sunshine NY organized the program in Haiti as a part of its Clothing and Food Drive 2023.
The clothes were collected during February and March and packaged in New York. Some twelve bags of gently used clothes, were collected and donated by club member Shimul Ismail and her16 year old daughter Nora,.Together they carefully sorted, organized and packaged the clothes for sending to Haiti.
Nora and her Mother Shimul were lauded at the club's meeting held in early March, where club president Aziz Ahmad, and Charter President Bina Ahmad specially mentioned Nora's contributions and thanked her. The Club also thanked Father Philippe, who went through a lot of effort to collect the clothes and purchase the food items and have them shipped in 2 barrels to Haiti for distribution among the distressed people.
The Club has already collected more clothes and those will be distributed in the Bronx and Ozone park areas in NY very soon.
Earlier, the Rotary Club of Sunshine conducted another food and clothing distribution program in collaboration with Westchester Rotary Club. Held on February 9 at Poughkeepsie in the outskirts of New York, this program was also a successful one. More than 50 people collected containers of freshly cooked food and several dozens of clothing items were distributed among people mostly from Afghan and Syrian refugee camps. Westchester Club President-Elect Maher Pathan, along with a few volunteers actively completed that distribution drive. Maher herself cooked the food and distributed them among unprivileged people in that locality.