The Silver Valley Fuller Center for Housing is accepting donations for long-term earthquake recovery in Haiti.

A Fuller Center team of Global Builders volunteers is in the nation this week and are working on Haitian soil as the anniversary is marked by most people from afar.

“We have a Global Builders team on the ground working to complete our 29th and 30th houses while simultaneously starting numbers 31 and 32,” said Ryan Iafigliola, the Fuller Center's Director of International Field Operations. “Next week, we will begin houses 33, 34 and 35, which we are building with our partners, The Lott Carey Foreign Mission Convention.”

Another partner is Grace International, a Christian-based, Haitian-run organization that strives to address social issues in Haiti through the oversight and management of 270 churches, 65 schools, 3 orphanages, a medical clinic, a hospital and a home for elderly widows. The partnership is how the Fuller Center's covenant partner in Haiti, Grace Fuller Center, got its name.

“Eighty percent of Haitians are basically on survival mode. … What you see on the news is basically true,” said Jonny Jeune, director of Grace Fuller Center, which is located in Gressier, near the epicenter of the earthquake and not far from the capital of Port-au-Prince. The initial site in this partnership is several miles east of Leogane at a site named Lambi, where plans call for 30 duplexes on seven acres of land. In addition to housing, Grace Fuller Center helps provide water, sanitation and civic space.

Kimberly Lacy, star of HGTV's "Curb Appeal: The Block", works during a Fuller Center work trip to Haiti in September 2011. "Anyone who has ever had the honor of visiting or working in Haiti will attest to leaving the country with a full heart and a yearning to return."

We are helping to build with those families on land owned by their family members. We hope to build 50-100 houses, or more as funding allows. In addition to the ongoing building projects, the Jesuits are helping coordinate education, job training, and clean water supply.

"We are now building and we're among the first organizations to be providing permanent shelter," Fuller Center President David Snell said. "We are moving forward with the important work of making decent housing a reality for the Haitian families who have suffered so much."

The money collected will go directly to Haitian building projects--none to administrative costs. 
Checks can be mailed to Silver Valley Fuller Center for Housing, PO Box 874, Kellogg, ID 83837. 
Payments can be made online www.fullercenter.org/haiti