Lessons Learned from the Haiti Response (part two)

By Jon Simons

To be very honest, I am struggling to fully understand the scope and scale of the devastation in Haiti.  The media has reported that over 100,000 people have died, thousands of children have been orphaned and an estimated 1.5M people are now homeless.  Intellectually, I understand that this is a tragedy on a massive scale but I am still having trouble getting my arms around the full picture.

Like so many, I am compelled to help out.  I have decided to make a financial contribution but feel very unsure of how my small donation will make any difference.  My donation of $100 seems woefully inadequate and insignificant when I hear that over 100 million has been donated worldwide and that the need could exceed one billion dollars.

Less than a week after the earthquake, I got my answer.

I watched, as a young boy was pulled from the rubble, exhausted, dehydrated and malnourished.  A reporter covering the story interviewed a doctor asking about the boys chances of survival, what I remember most about his answer is that he said that a $10 donation would feed this boy for a month.  For the first time, I understood the power of my small $100 donation. I was not tossing a pebble into the ocean; I was nourishing a young boy who had lost everything and everyone for almost a year.

Do your donors understand how their dollars can make change?

Last 5 posts by Jon Simons

• What's the point? - January 17th, 2012
• I "get" it. - July 27th, 2011
• Three Generations of Camping - May 5th, 2011
• The Best Question Ever - March 21st, 2011
• The Search for Sea Glass - February 24th, 2011

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