From Connecticut-
Grass-roots efforts to help Haiti since its devastating earthquake are flourishing in Connecticut, but it's hard to imagine any eclipsing the scope of the Good Samaritan Rebuilding Project.
Within a week of the Jan. 12 disaster, a small group of people connected to two Episcopal churches — one in Stamford, the other in Bloomfield — had grown to more than 100 volunteers from throughout the Northeast and Canada.
And the group's initial efforts to save a single school that has been partially funded by the Bloomfield church have evolved into a virtual pipeline of jets and supplies heading regularly from JFK International Airport to the Dominican Republic and then to Port-au-Prince, Haiti's devastated capital. From there, the pipeline extends 10 more miles to Carrefour, an impoverished town that had been the site of Ecole le Bon Samaritain, or Good Samaritan School, which was started in 1996 by two priests.
Much of the Good Samaritan project's success can be traced to word of mouth and the Internet. But it all goes back to a friendship between those priests — Puck Purnell and Jean-Elie Millien — that started in Stamford about 15 years ago.
Purnell and Millien met while both were working as priests at Episcopal churches in Stamford. Purnell was at St. Paul's, and Millien formed l'Eglise de l'Epiphanie, a Haitian congregation housed in St. John's. Millien retired and returned to his native Haiti, but his family remained close to Purnell, who moved to Bloomfield to lead Old St. Andrew's. The family friends started Ecole le Bon Samaritain in Carrefour, and Old St. Andrew's has helped support the school since.
http://www.courant.com/news/nation-world/haiti-earthquake/hc-haiti-grassroots-0304.artmar04,0,7973463.story
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