"Work Retreat" of DC's In Haiti - Legacy of 1983 Hunger Walk
The hospital in Fond des Blancs, Centre de Sante, Saint Boniface, is the direct result of a parish in Quincy, Massachusetts “Walk for Hunger” in 1983.Two Sisters of the Emmitsburg Province, Sr. Joan Drega and Sr. Cora Anne Signaigo, participated in a Haiti Work Retreat sponsored by the St. Boniface Haiti Foundation. A small delegation from the parish traveled to Haiti to make their modest contribution. Sr. Joan, Sr. Martha, Sr. Cora Anne
The hospital in Fond des Blancs, Centre de Sante, Saint Boniface, is the direct result of a parish in Quincy, Massachusetts “Walk for Hunger” in 1983.
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Coming face to face with the poverty and destitution of the Haitian people touched and changed this group forever. From that time, the project has grown to involve regular work retreats, education and medical projects, scholarships and the construction of a small hospital.
The hospital provides the only source of health care to the 40,000 rural poor of Fond des Blancs, many of who walk twenty miles or more to receive care.
The hospital is administered by the Daughters of Charity, the result of St. Boniface Foundation’s request for the sisters, and supported by the St. Boniface Foundation. They employ workers from the rural community.
The secondary mission of the Foundation is to improve the quality of life in the Haitian community through education programs. They have also committed themselves to raise the awareness in the people of the United States of the extreme poverty endured by our Haitian neighbors.
The Daughters of Charity of the Haitian Province devote themselves to trying to meet some of the great needs of the people with health care, education and social programs in other locations in Haiti. The hospital in Milot, named Sacre Coeur, is the Interprovincial work of the five Provinces of the Daughters of Charity in the United States. Currently there are two American Daughters of Charity and one Sister of Charity of Nazareth serving in this hospital.
See the further reflections of two of the Sisters at
http://www.daughtersofcharity-emmitsburg.org/what_new.htm