SALT LAKE CITY - Despite the thousands of miles between Utah and Haiti, the magnitude 7 earthquake that struck the island nation also hit the Beehive State. Catholics are among the Utahns who are pouring time and money into relief efforts.
"It's a very scary time, [but] it's great the public are coming together and supporting each other," said Mary Burchett, a Cathedral of the Madeleine parishioner who is a full-time volunteer in the Utah American Red Cross Utah chapter. "It always happened to poor countries and to people who are not able to pick themselves up. And that's what I like about the Red Cross, that they are able to help out and provide money to these people which are struggling."
Burchett, who graduated last year from the University of Portland, recently began working with the Red Cross Utah chapter in community disaster education, because she wanted to work for a non profit and she thinks the Red Cross "does a lot of great things for people."
The disaster has a personal aspect for Burchett as well. Her friend Molly has been working in a Haitian orphanage for the past seven months, and ha been missing since the earthquake, so Burchett has been asking people to pray for everybody over there.
The American Red Cross is accepting monetary donations for the relief efforts but isn't sending volunteers to Haiti at this time. However, Catholic Relief Services (CRS) is coordinating the church's relief and recovery efforts in the disaster area.
CRS, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' international relief and development agency, was able to get a jump-start on distributing aid because it already had warehouses filled with supplies in Haiti set up after the 2008 hurricanes in the region. CRS has been working in Haiti for 55 years and has pledged an initial $5 million for earthquake relief. Prior to the earthquake, more than 300 staffers were in Haiti; about one-third of them were based in Port-au-Prince.
The Jan. 12 earthquake has claimed an estimated 200,000 lives, including Archbishop Joseph Serge Miot, in the capital of Haiti, Port au Prince. According to a Catholic News Service report, Catholic health clinics in Haiti are running out of medical supplies, which is leading to deaths and extreme situations such as medical personnel having to perform amputations without anesthetic.
The USCCB urged parishes to hold a special collection during Masses on the Jan. 16 weekend for CRS' Haitian relief efforts. The funds will be used "to respond to immediate emergency needs (water, food, shelter, medical care) as well to the long-term need to rebuild after widespread destruction," according to a letter from Cardinal Francis E. George, USCCB president and Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan, chairman of CRS.
In a written message to the Diocese of Salt Lake City, Bishop John C. Wester, said that "Our hearts go to our brothers and sisters who, almost inured to suffering, now must shoulder this new cross. I ask that we all join in earnest prayer for the people in Haiti, for those who have lost their lives and for those who now must struggle to put their lives back on track."
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