Beautiful Guest House in Haiti Makes Kledèv More Sustainable
Dear Friends of Haiti,
Something great is happening with Kledèv in Haiti that is going to transform countless lives! We’ve "partially secured" the perfect building in Port au Prince (with a beautiful garden with many mango trees!) to call the home of our organization and a place where educational and community service programs can take place.
The building is a large and secure residence located in Tabarre, in a quiet neighborhood not far from the airport. Some of the services we will offer are free language classes and literacy training for area residents – especially kids, computer and Internet classes and services, and clean water distribution, to name a few.
This building can also serve as a full-service “guest house” for visitors who come to Haiti to work with different communities, including medical missions and groups from other charitable organizations. We already have groups interested in coming to stay, and the house can sleep ten to twelve people. So, with a full house, we’d be taking in an estimated $250 – $350 a night!
Maybe YOU will come someday to stay with us!
Being able to collect a reasonable fee from our guests in Haiti will move our organization from 100% supported by donations to partially self-sustaining! Plus, we’ll be meeting great people from other organizations working on countless projects and getting to know them well because they’ll be staying with us! This supports the expansion of our network, and that’s important to fulfill on all of our objectives.
Last year, we received many generous donations of items originally intended to be used in the house. These items, with the exception of the few that have already been shipped, are still being held in a shipping container in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Shipping costs are incredibly high and raising the money (over $10,000) to ship the items has stood in the way of the project moving forward.
We’ve recently determined that a better way to accelerate the opening of the Guest House is to sell as many of the donated items as we can and use the proceeds to support the purchase of, where possible, Haitian-made items in Haiti. This converts no movement and a liability (warehousing fees) into ACTION that actually fulfills on our mission to support economic development in Haiti!
We have the rent paid for the first year, but to really secure the building as our center of operation, we need to come up with $6000 by the beginning of July. Together, we can do this! After that, the next step will be to attract major funding for the actual purchase of the building, sometime in the next 12-18 months! What’s really needed now to fully secure the building are small cash
donations from many individuals, and capital investments from foundation
partnerships yet to be created.
Junior St-Vil, one of our leaders in Haiti who you may already know, is currently here in the U.S. on a month-long fund raising tour. He’d be thrilled to learn that you’re working with us!
If you are inspired to invest in this future for people in Haiti, please make out a check for any amount today to Kledev and send it to the address below. If now doesn’t work for you, would you be willing to share this posting with people in your circle (and pass around that hat!)?
If you use Paypal, posting a donation to donations@kledev.org is the fastest way to donate, but if you would prefer to send a check, our mailing address is:
Kledev, PO BOX 40567, San Francisco, CA 94140
Thank you for your generosity in reading this and for supporting empowering people in Haiti!
Clay Kilgore, Kledèv
