Five Loaves!!

Five Loaves is up and running!

Five Loaves is a non-profit organization started by my father and a few others which is running within Promise for Haiti. It is focused on providing health care to families in Northern Haiti. The program links sponsors in the States with a family in Haiti. Both pay into a Health Development Account (HDA) annually.

The front of the Hospital in Pignon

Approximately half goes towards the hospital in Pignon, Haiti's daily operating costs and the other half goes into an account specific to the Haitian family, the last very small percentage going towards paying the Haitian representative for Five Loaves. In the case of an illness or injury, the family presents their HDA ID card and the hospital can take the funds necessary from the account. The family can also take out some money towards funeral costs in the case of a death and after the family has paid in a certain amount, they can apply for permission to take out a loan against up to 20% of the account value towards education, home improvement or business supplies.

There are currently 50 families signed up to receive accounts as soon as sponsors are available. The need is there, check it out!

For more specific information (dollar amounts, requirements of Haitian families, etc) please click here or feel free to contact Doug Grunder at grunderd@marionmixers.com

NO MORE ER... Please!!!

That's right. No more. I'm past my quota for the year.

So far this year we took in a friend who had an allergic-esque reaction to her contacts and then Mike's grandmother at Christmas when she had pneumonia after her final treatment for lung cancer (she's doing wonderfully now, PTL!!). That's about two times more than any other year, so I thought I was done. But no.

On Friday Mike decided to be a really great husband and re-wash the dishes that didn't get clean in our awful dishwasher without me asking or anything. While doing so he sliced his finger on our "big old serial killer knife". Luckily (1) we live 5 minutes from the ER, (2) the knife was fairly clean and really sharp and (3) he filleted it making a shallow cut and avoided all the tendons in the knuckle.

Once the 5 stitches come out next weekend, he'll be all fixed up.

Sorry if this make's ya nauseous or something, but my mom was okay with it so I  hope its safe for everyone :)