November 11, 2010 (El Cajon) – Rescue Task Force, a nonprofit organization founded in El Cajon, and World Emergency Relief of Carlsbad are sending relief to victims of the cholera outbreak in Haiti. More donations are sought as the death toll rises. More than 724 people have died since the outbreak began in October, and more than 11,000 have been infected. A thousand new cases a week are being reported, according to BBC news.

Donations, supplies also needed to help children who survived quake

May 21, 2010 (Mt. Helix) – Dr. Carolle Jean-Murat gives a grim update on the plight in Haiti. “Only a few people have received tents, tarps, or food to sustain them. Many are presently dying of disease, malnutrition, or simply checking out mentally or dying with a broken heart.”

February 13, 2010 (San Diego)----San Diego Self Storage’s Jamacha Point facility in Spring Valley donated 100 corrugated boxes for shipping supplies to benefit earthquake victims in Haiti. The boxes transported items collected at the Light of the World Church, including clothing, medical supplies, food and water.

January 29, 2010 (Mt. Helix) – Dr. Carolle Jean-Murat, founder of Angels For Haiti and Health Through Communications, was among the first to bring food and water to quake victims. Now she has teamed up with other local doctors to obtain thousands of dollars in donated orthopedic supplies. They seek additional supplies--and money to pay shipping costs.

At a fundraiser in her Mt. Helix home last weekend, Jean-Murat showed photos of homes ravaged by the quake—homes she helped build for Haiti’s impoverished people. Now she now aims to rebuild the homes, repair a damaged hospita, and bring much-needed medical care to the people.

VIEW  VIDEO INTERVIEW WITH DR. JEAN-MURAT, INCLUDING HER PHOTOS OF QUAKE DAMAGE & RELIEF EFFORTS:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8h-p-rTcLj4

January 28, 2010 -- Through the crisis and chaos in Haiti comes life – three new lives.

World Emergency Relief’s Rescue Task Force team from San Diego continues to save lives in Haiti. Darryl Hall, team leader, and the RTF team were delivering newly arrived medicines and medical supplies to a small clinic when they discovered a mother desperately holding onto her new babies. Her babies – triplets only hours old -- were fighting for their lives.

January 21, 2009 – Over 700 Salvation Army relief workers are in Haiti, bringing food and medical attention to earthquake survivors. Amid the devastation, there are some tiny miracles –including three babies born at the Salvation Army clinic since the quake struck (photo, left).

Locally, The Salvation Army Kroc Center’s Verge Theater Company invites you to an event on January 29 to raise money for Haitian relief.

January 25, 2010 (San Diego) –Rescue Task Force, the humanitarian organization established in East County that has since merged with World Emergency Relief, is now working to restore electricity in Haiti.

 
“Lack of power can cost lives,” RTF’s Andrea Stone observed.

“We do not rest much. Every minute is the difference between life and death.” – Darryl Hall, team leader, Rescue Task Force
 

By Miriam Raftery

January 23, 2010 (San Diego) –International Relief Teams (IRT) and Rescue Task Force (RTF), two San Diego-based humanitarian organizations, were among the first to reach Haiti after the earthquake struck. Both teams have saved countless lives since their arrival, though much more help is needed.

Below are stories of their heroic efforts and their eyewitness accounts of one of the worst natural disasters in the western hemisphere.

IRT leader shares details in exclusive interview

By Marisa Kezirian and Miriam Raftery

January 21, 2010 (Haiti) – Last night a local rescue worker from International Rescue Team (IRT) in San Diego helped treat a five-year-old boy pulled from beneath a collapsed building in Haiti. Miraculously the child survived eight days without food or water, as far as rescuers can determine.

The boy was dehydrated but in remarkably good shape given his ordeal, emerging with what one TV newscaster has dubbed "the smile seen round the world."  Watch video on CNN or on IRT's website.

"Our own IRT volunteer Colleen Buono, MD helped to save the little boy,” Barry LaForgia, executive director of IRT in San Diego, told East County Magazine. 

A.G. Office Has Searchable Database of Registered Charities

January 14, 2010 (Oakland)  - Attorney General Edmund G. "Jerry" Brown Jr. today is encouraging Californians to make charitable donations for victims of the devastating earthquake in Haiti, but warns citizens to avoid "scam artists" who may prey on the goodwill of California donors.

January 17, 2009 (San Diego) – Two San Diego organizations, International Relief Teams (IRT) and Rescue Task Force (RTF) are dispatching teams to aid victims of the devastating 7.0 earthquake that rocked Haiti last Tuesday. 

The situation is criticial with infrastructure destroyed including most hospitals, the major port, roadways and the palace. Hundreds of thousands are feared dead and many remain trapped in rubble, yet survivors continued to be pulled out of debris as late as today. 

January 15, 2010 (San Diego) – Vera Valdivia, a former San Diego resident and alumni of Thomas Jefferson School of Law, is in Haiti and seeks help from San Diego County residents for children in a Haitian orphanage that she co-founded and helped build. The 7.0 earthquake which struck Haiti earlier this week has destroyed the orphanage, East County Magazine has learned.

“As of right now, Valdivia and the orphanage children are living outside in the harsh, earthquake-ravaged conditions,” Denice Menard, communications coordinator for Thomas Jefferson School of Law informed ECM today. “The latest thing I heard is that they are not close enough to Port Au Prince, so they are not getting anything.”  The orphanage cares for approximately 60 children who are in need of food, milk, and other supplies.