Boca Grande continues to play a critical role for the nation's largest relief-giving organization.
Coconut Creek-based Food For The Poor, which helped Boca Grande organizers build one village in Haiti and start work on another, underscored islander efforts in its annual report.
In Haiti alone, Food For The Poor built 2,184 permanent two-room homes with sanitation units with Boca Grande contributing roughly 5 percent of the total.
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Ben Scott
The Boca Grande Hope for Haitians Committee, led by Chairman Ben Scott, worked with Food For The Poor to build 62 homes in Haiti, a nine-room school, 650 fruit trees, a cow farm, water treatment system, animal husbandry project, community chicken farm, solar-powered community center and a five-room vocational school in its Friendship Village I.
Michaud, an impoverished farming community with about 10,000 residents, is now the site of Boca Grande's Friendship Village II. The Boca Grande Friendship Village Committee still needs funding to finish its $382,000 second phase, said Scott.
Pierre Payen, the first village built by the Boca Grande Hope for Haitians Committee, cost $791,000 to finish.
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Boca Grande Friendship Village Committee
Ben and Louise Scott, Revs. Gary Beatty, Jerome Carosella and Read Heydt, George and Lois Castrucci, Patricia Chapman, Ray and Iliene Corcoran, Charlie and Florita Field, Evelyn Finnegan, Lou and Corie Fusz, Stephen and Susan Jansen, Tom and Nancy Lorden, Colvin and Madelaine McCrady, John and Pauline Mendez and Peter and Elsa Soderberg.
Boca Grande's goal in its second Haitian project is to provide two-room homes for 40 families in Michaud with sanitation units and kitchenettes.
Each family will also be given two solar-powered lanterns and four solar-powered street lamps will be installed in the community. The village will also include a community center, 200 fruit trees, 80 goats and a water filtration unit.
"Ben Scott and the Boca Grande committee members are doing a tremendous job to help the people in Haiti," said Angel Aloma, executive director of Food For The Poor, in a recent trip to Boca Grande.
The charity built 6,294 housing units last year bringing the total to more than 77,417 since 1982. Food For The Poor's 2012 goal is to build 12,000 homes, dig 1,200 water wells and ship 1,200 containers of food to needy in 17 countries.
Food For The Poor's 2011 annual report showed operating expenses under 4 percent so more than 96 percent of donations went toward programs to help the poor.
More than 24.9 million pounds of rice, 7.7 million pounds of beans and 10.3 million pounds of canned foods were delivered.
Food for the Poor delivered 588 trailers of medicines and medical supplies and shipped 310 trailers of educational supplies.
Its 56 fishing village initiatives, tilapia ponds, fruit tree plantings, animal husbandry and agricultural programs provided food and income, which helped to create self-sustaining communities.
Food for the Poor continued to provide clean water, build schools, training centers and clinics and support nursing homes and orphanages. For more information, go to FoodForThePoor.org.
