Islanders remember Haiti

On Nantucket, the outpouring of community support for Haiti is still ongoing. Last week the second grade at the Nantucket Elementary School raised over $4,000 with special events that included crazy hat day and pajama day, topped off with a bake sale on Friday.

Within the first couple of hours of alerting his friends on Facebook about the “Shoes for Haiti” effort, 20 pairs of shoes were dropped off at Simon Shurey’s home.

“It’s part of the Sole for Souls.org,” said Shurey, who spoke with students at the New School and The Nantucket Lighthouse School last week about helping with the shoe drive.

Drop-off boxes can be found at the Westmoor Club, Great Harbor Yacht Club, Nantucket Chamber of Commerce, Annye’s Whole Foods, Nantucket New School and Nantucket Lighthouse School.

The Nantucket Collaborative Fundraiser for Haiti, held at The Muse on Jan. 23 raised over $8,000. Donations from the event were sent to the American Red Cross, with an additional donation made to the Hospital Albert Schweitzer in Haiti.

Natalie A. Ciminero of Liaison Events, Arelene O’Reilly of Mind’s Eye Productions and Michael O’Reilly of The Muse helped plan the event that featured local bands Billy Voss, Perfect Day, Chuck Colley Trio, The Return, Dave Street Band, 30 Miles out with Matt Ellis of the Cape Fear Band and Earth’s Got the Blues. All bands donated their performance for this fundraising effort.

Many volunteers and local businesses also participated to make the Nantucket Collaborative Fundraiser a community event.

The Rotary Club of Nantucket has raised enough funds to purchase one Shelter Box and is at the halfway mark to purchase a second one. The Shelter Box includes a tent, blankets, cooking stove, cooking utensils and the basic necessities for a family of four and is part of Rotary International’s effort to help those in Haiti.

The Rotary Club of Nantucket is sponsoring the newly formed Interact Club, a Rotary Club for high school students, at Nantucket High School.

”Over 24 students have joined,” said Paula Leary of the Rotary Club of Nantucket. “They have elected officers and adopted a charter and are also beginning to collect money for Shelter Boxes.”

Joe Farrell, CEO of Resolve Marine based in Florida and part-time ‘Sconset resident, sent a salvage ship and a barge full medical supplies and food to Port au Prince, Haiti last week.

“I sent all this equipment and full dive teams to Haiti… knowing that this is the equipment needed to open the ports,” wrote Farrell in an e-mail. “We just finished opening an adjacent port called Varreux. In five days we made the port capable of receiving barges and U.S. military landing craft to a beach zone.” I