The house was packed, the band rocked with Cajun tunes and people couldn't stay off the dance floor! An estimated 115 attended this year's fundraising event on Valentine's Day, sharing their wealth and good vibes with our friends linked up in New Orleans and the people of Haiti. We will send a thousand dollar check to each the Community Center of St Bernard and Containers 2 Clinics. Thank you to everyone who came and participated! Our superb Landing Krewe team of volunteers worked to spiff up the 6000 sq ft of floor space with mood setting lighting, games, an open Revival bar thanks to the donations from L. Knife, and best of all the eight authentic scrumptious competing jambalaya dishes, sweet potato salad and fried oyster po' boys--and did we eat!

Jenny DeFreitas won the jambalaya cook-off luring $67 out of her friends to stuff the ballot box and almost double her nearest competitor. Still, we have to commend Bob Weber, Steve Chetwyne, Marie Lubbers, Pat Arnold, Katrina refugee Patrick Wooten, Sara Altherr, and Olly DeMacedo for their outstanding and unique contributions. Thanks also to Alex and Leighanne who donated all the oysters and fried up hundreds to feed our hoard the finest oysters on earth, and to Peggy Gallagher for those jazzy yams, cornbread, and never to be bested brownies. The games were a big hit and will become a standard now that we have the bean-bag "food-chain throw," thanks to the artwork of volunteer & Mass Maritime cadet Holly MacLaughlin. Great thanks also to Sue Weber for donating a stunning hand painted oyster & lemon silk scarf, and She Landscaping for the original Hatian art "Tree of Life" for the auction.

Besides the fantastic must-dance-to-that music of the Grand Bois band, it was wonderful to have the presentation from Liz Sheehan on her work to bring medical health clinics to Haiti, the Dominican Republic and in other needed places around the globe. Everyone stopped to pay serious attention to the plight of the Haitian people and to contribute their concern and money to help supply these needed health facilities. Finally we thank our friends at the Community Center of St. Bernard who again sent us the King Cakes for the party to add that "can't be found anywhere else" authenticity to our Mardi Gras.

All helped to raise the spirit and not forget that tragedies like Katrina and the Hatian quake take an enormous toll on people, and that the impacted communities continue to need genuine assistance and compassion from those of us in a position to help and care. Thank you all--Landing Krewe and Party-goers. Please come again next year!


Updates on our beneficiaries:

• The Community Center of St. Bernard has been our New Orleans beneficiary for the last 3 years. They are dedicated to providing Hurricane Katrina survivors with the continued recovery resources they need in a safe and all-inclusive setting. To date, we've donated over $7,000 to New Orleans through the CCStB and Habitat for Humanity. Read more: http://www.ccstb.org/
• Containers2Clinics is an organization founded by one of our close friends, Liz Sheehan. Liz is working with Partners in Health and others to bring needed health clinics to Haiti now. See: www.containers2clinics.org
• Partners in Health is an organization that has been working in Haiti for over 20 years to provide service, training, advocacy, and research to bring the benefits of modern medical science to those most in need: www.standwithhaiti.org
• Music from: Grand Bois
• Photos from past Mardi Gras celebrations: Mardi Gras gallery
• 2009 Press: Kingston Reporter article

From Liz Sheehan, Containers 2 Clinics:
About one month ago, the devastating earthquake struck Haiti and C2C was approached with a number of opportunities to deploy the prototype unit to Port-au-Prince. As always, our commitment to sustainable health systems informed our choices. Piloting the clinic in Port-au-Prince presents a different set of challenges, but also an opportunity to make an important contribution to the post-earthquake health crisis. Our focus is and has always been on maternal and child health and primary and preventive care. Together with Americares, C2C will launch the pilot clinic in Haiti in May 2010. While the Haitian Ministry of Health has experienced significant setbacks in the weeks and months after the earthquake, there are aid and relief organizations working to increase the MoH’s capacity and autonomy. C2C is collaborating closely the Health Cluster in Port-au-Prince to ensure that our efforts are responsive, collaborative, and aligned with the MoH’s reconstruction plans. Americares will provide essential support to C2C’s pilot deployment. Americares will supply all pharmaceuticals and health commodities to the clinic for a period of three (3) years. We recognize that a fee-for-service model is not feasible in Haiti under the present circumstances, but this pilot program will allow C2C to refine our operational model, to learn about ways to improve the facility for future fabrications and – with a robust M&E protocol – we will seek the inputs and learnings that will enable us to fabricate and deploy additional clinics in the second half of 2010 and in 2011. C2C designed the prototype clinic with the support of a broad stakeholder group, including leading public health practitioners, medical doctors, and international development specialists. The prototype clinic consists of two 8’x20’ shipping containers which have been retrofitted to allow for two patient consultation rooms, a pharmacy, and a laboratory. The mechanical and electrical systems have been designed for maximum versatility, so that this pilot (and future clinics) can be constructed to “plug in” to a variety of water and power scenarios. The health situation in Haiti is both grave and urgent and we are confident that the container clinic model is well-suited to disaster relief environments, because we offer a facility that can move with changing migration patterns and demographics. C2C is creating job opportunities for Haitians – we are not importing western medical or management personnel. My staff will be in Port-au-Prince from March 14th through March 19th. Upon return the team will choose the sight for the first clinic after which we start the process of moving the clinics from Boston to Haiti. We have come so far! We could not have done it without each and everyone of you!!! Thank you!! Elizabeth

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