Duke Chapel Christmas Eve Offering Provides Salaries For Haiti Clinic
Nearly $20,000 in Christmas Eve donations will go to health care workers near Port-au-Prince
Friday, January 12, 2007
Durham, NC -- The offering from the 2006 Christmas Eve services at Duke Chapel will be used to pay the salaries of the staff members at the Blanchard Family Health Center near Port-au-Prince, Haiti, including a physician and two public health workers.
Those who attended the 11 a.m., 5:30 p.m. and 11 p.m. services on Christmas Eve gave $19,754.
“We feel privileged to be able to support this life-giving ministry to the people of Haiti,” said Nancy Ferree-Clark, pastor to the Congregation at Duke Chapel. “This is one of our favorite ways to spread the hope, joy and love of the Christmas season.”
In May 2004, an 11-person group coordinated by the Congregation at Duke Chapel conducted a mission trip to Haiti with Family Health Ministries (FHM). The purpose of the trip was to lay the foundation for the first and only medical clinic in Blanchard, a city of 225,000 people located just outside the capital city of Port-au-Prince.
The 2003 Christmas Eve offering of $10,000 went toward the original clinic foundation. Christmas Eve offerings in 2004 and 2005 raised another $27,000 that went toward the completion of the facility.
The vision of the clinic is to provide care for illness and injury, and to provide preventive health services. Men and women will receive annual health care screening, mothers will receive prenatal care and education, and infants and children will receive well-child visits and immunizations.
FHM is a multi-ethnic, Christian, faith-based nonprofit organization dedicated to developing long-term relationships with individuals, families and communities in need. Currently, FHM supports programs in women’s and children’s health, public health, primary and secondary education and spiritual support in Haiti, Honduras and Tanzania.
