Daily Real Estate News  |  October 3, 2007  |   Michigan Practitioner Gives Haitians New Hope, Health
Living conditions in the mountain villages of Haiti are rough, to say the least. People there must live with no electricity or running water, no waste disposal systems, little food, and blistering heat.

But Patrick Moore, of Rowling Real Estate Inc., Port Huron, Mich., is making big progress in improving the quality of life for villagers there. In nearly 50 journeys to Haiti since his first visit in February 2001, he has helped thousands of Haitians with much-needed medical treatment, drinking water, and shelter.

Moore first learned about the abject Haitian poverty when he answered a request from a local pastor and personal friend. “He asked me and my good friend Pat Kut to set up a medical clinic in Haiti. With my experience as a firefighter and emergency medical technician, and Pat’s experience as a doctor, we decided to do it,” Moore says.

On their first trip, Moore and Kut provided medical treatment to more than 3,000 people in 18 days, treating everything from tropical diseases like malaria to skin infections and dehydration. But they soon realized the need for a more organized financial effort to continue treating the Haitians.

Thus was born Harvest of Haiti, a nonprofit humanitarian outreach program staffed almost entirely by Moore and Kut that treats close to 3,500 people per year. As a result, infant death rates have dropped and there are fewer people sickened by waterborne diseases.

The first year, 2001, Harvest raised $15,000 through private donations. Momentum grew, and last year the organization raised $31,000. That allowed the program to buy a building in the village of Anse Rouge that has been transformed into an orphanage, now home to 32 children.

Harvest of Haiti also has provided surgery free of charge in the United States for five Haitian children born with deformities, but some of the most dramatic results of Moore’s efforts come from an inexpensive $25 water filter. “We’d see all these dehydrated people and tell them to drink more water, never thinking that the reason they didn’t was because of waterborne disease,” says Moore. “So three years ago we started providing $25 water filters that purify 40 gallons of water a day.”

To date, he has installed more than 450 water filter systems, each of which purify 40 gallons of water a day, and drilled two wells.

Perhaps the most telling illustration of Moore’s dedication to his Haitian undertaking is what he has done for his adopted daughter Chrismene. When Moore met Chrismene in 2002, “her mother brought her to our clinic and expected us to fix her cleft lip and palate that day,” he says. “Chrismene was 13 months at the time and I knew that, in Haiti, children are shunned for birth defects. So I made a promise to her mother that I’d get her help,” says Moore.

A few months later, after arranging surgery in Michigan, Moore went back to the village to bring the child to the United States on a medical visa. Chrismene lived in Moore’s house for four months while she recovered from the successful surgery. “We got very attached to her during that time and didn’t look forward to bringing her back, but I knew I had to,” says Moore.

However, when he did bring her back, Chrismene’s mother begged him to adopt her because her parents couldn’t afford to feed her. “I knew the child’s fate would be sealed if I left her, so my wife and I agreed to raise Chrismene. We know she has a mother and father in Haiti who care about her a great deal, and eventually we’ll bring her back to Haiti so she can re-connect with them. But, for now, I’m just happy she’s here with us,” he says.

Chrismene is now six years old. “She’s a joy,” he says. “In Haiti, her mother would’ve struggled to give her even the basic things like food and a bed.”

Moore is one of 10 finalists for the Good Neighbor Awards, a grant program recognizing REALTORSŪ who make exceptional volunteer contributions to their communities. Of the 10 Good Neighbor finalists, five winners will receive $10,000 grants for their community projects and will be honored at the REALTORSŪ Conference & Expo in Las Vegas on November 14. The remaining five finalists will receive $2,500 grants for their cause.

You can contact Patrick W. Moore and Harvest of Haiti at Rowling Real Estate; 810/985-9597; gourdman1@comcast.net.

— By Tracey C. Velt for REALTORŪ Magazine Online