Wow!  This is an exciting and energizing time for the St. Joseph’s Family!  As the founder, I have seen God at work in this family from the beginning.  In 1984 this work was just an idea that came to me in prayer. On Jan. 31, 1985 this family began to materialize with our first rented home and five former street children.  Today we have three homes, a dance theater, art center, guest houses and a school for the poorest children in Jacmel, and on the horizon we have a fair trade coffee business and bakery.

     St. Joseph’s is a family that strives for sustainability.  Even back in 1985 we were helping earn our keep with a cottage industry where all of the children and I were making banana-bark greeting cards and selling them.  We no longer make the greeting cards to generate revenue.  Instead, our youth have developed a professional dance troupe that yearly tours the US and Canada, generating funds to help us pay the bills.  All three of our homes also function as guest houses, giving us another source of earned income.

    Despite all of our efforts we still fall short of the US $480,000 needed just to maintain our three homes to the standard of excellence we call forth from our youth. Our earned income does provide about 20% of what is needed to sustain the work of the St. Joseph’s Family.  We hope to make that a higher percentage once we get our fair trade coffee business and bakery up and running.

    People hear Haiti described as the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and make the false assumption that the cost of living is very low.  Not so!  Diesel fuel costs around US $5.00 a gallon.  The electric company of Port-au-Prince gives us, if we are lucky, 5 hours of electricity a day---usually from 11:00 PM until 4:00 AM.  This requires that our homes have generators and inverters.  We only run those generators from 5:00 PM until 11:00 PM and from 5:00 AM until 9:00 AM when we most need it.  This costs us an average of US $50 a day!

    Our highest expense is wages, as we strive to pay a just wage.  We have the reputation of paying some of the best wages in Haiti.  People ask us why we pay above the normal wage. We pay well because we can and because it is the right thing to do. Our lowest paid worker gets the equivalent of US $13 a day. Our highest wage earners get US $50 a day.  Many other children’s homes in Haiti pay their staff from US $3.00 a day to US $8.00 a day.  To rent a one room, tin covered home, half the size of a one car garage, is US$30 dollars a month---a dollar a day. To educate one child at a normal school is US $32 dollars a month--- add onto that the school entrance fee, books and school uniform---the average comes closer to US $60  a month.  Education then is about US $2.00 a day.  For the person earning just US $3.00 a day that is all their wages just for a dwelling place and the education for one child.  Rare is the Haitian family that has only one child.  Five is more the average number of children per family.

     Our employees are able to afford better, larger housing for their families as well as afford to educate their children and feed their families daily.  It is not that unusual to find families in Haiti who eat only every three days.  Our employees don’t just survive, they thrive.

    Bill, is the director of St. Josephs Family.  He is 22 years old. He earns US $600 a month plus room and board.  Last year Bill graduated from high school.  Bill found out that a third of his class of 21 people were not going to be allowed to graduate because their families could not afford to pay the balance of their school costs. Bill paid all the remaining fees for the students who could not afford to pay so that his whole class could graduate.  That speaks to the value of giving a just wage---it produces good workers who are fair and generous with others. It affords them dignity and a feeling of independence and self-worth.

    The staff at Wings of Hope, our home for children with physical and mental challenges, has progressed from not knowing a thing about helping children with special needs to where today, they are known as the best special needs care facility in all of Haiti. Wings of Hope is lifting up children and young adults who much of Haitian society consider as being of no value. Wings shows these special children and the world that these children have great value and amazing potential.  Not only can those who never walked before now walk, they can also dance!  Many of the Wings youth hold jobs and have bank accounts. They give back by helping feed other Wings children who can't feed themselves. They attend school and live lives of promise and dignity.  When we get our coffee business and bakery up and running we will employ several of the young adults with special needs. They will move into more independent housing in Jacmel and make room for other children to move into Wings of Hope. This is exciting!

    We always tell our young people to be the best they can be with what they have, where they are.  If we tell them that, we also have to put action to those words by investing in our current leaders and our up-and-coming leaders. We provide our young people with the education they need to be the best.  All three of our homes are largely staffed by “graduates” of St. Joseph’s.  They went from the streets, where they were rejected and cast down, to where today they are the ones empowering others and lifting others up.  On St. Joseph’s Family stationary we state it clearly, we are“ Empowering children to empower others.”

     Our annual education costs are somewhere in the area of US $30,000.  To professionally care for one child at Wings of Hope we are currently spending US $6,000 a year per child.  There are 37 special needs children at Wings.  That comes to US $220,000 a year. Cotting School, a top-of-the-line educational facility for children with special needs in Lexington, Mass., partners with us at Wings of Hope. The per-student cost at Cotting averages US $70,000 a year. We are way below that in cost but on a par with Cotting School in quality.

    Living on the streets our young people were not able to attend school.  They know there are still a lot of children in that same situation. Giving back by being of service to others is an important lesson learned at St. Joseph’s.  Out of this desire to improve the lives of others we now have a school in Jacmel for the poorest children of that area.  Forty of Haiti’s poorest children are receiving two meals a day and a quality education because of a group of former street children. Children helping children ---This is powerful!

    Let’s look at some encouraging numbers:
77 ---combined number of children and youth in residence at St. Joseph’s, Wings of Hope and Trinity House. Each one receiving a quality education, nourishing food, dignified housing, love, affirmation, leadership formation and opportunities for an even brighter future for themselves and their country.

74 ---number of employees working for the St. Joseph’s Family

31 ---number of impoverished families receiving partial assistance from the SJF

83 ---number of students, (not including those youth in residence at our three homes), whose full education is being provided for either directly at our Trinity House School in Jacmel or through scholarships we fund.

    Those are the people we know are being enriched by their connection to the SJF. We do not know the full effect of the ripple system---how many lives the people we help are now also able to help others---such as their children and struggling relatives. In addition to a quality education, the children attending our Trinity House School receive breakfast and lunch every school day.  Many of those children intentionally don’t eat all of their food.   They take a portion of it home to share with their other family members.

    When our bakery is in operation we intend to tithe a portion of the bread made and give that to the poorest families of the community.  Our coffee business will give an added income to at least 46 coffee growers and their families.

    When we are building the bakery or the coffee building or adding a roof to the Trinity House School, at least 24 construction workers and their families are blessed as well.

    All of that considered, an amazing number of people are being lifted up and transformed with the US $480,000 we require each year!

     Sustainability is what we are striving for, and the heart of what sustains us is prayer. The seeds of what has become the St. Joseph’s Family were planted in quiet moments of prayer. Continued prayer and action brought an inspired idea to fruition.  We, the St. Joseph’s Family, are keenly aware of God’s presence in our lives. We know that with God all things are possible. We firmly believe we are called to accomplish great things, for the glory of God and the good of the poorest children of Haiti.  I invite you to join us in the struggles and the joys of this resurrection experience.

Peace!             Michael