Lynn students to raise money for Haiti

By Palm Beach Business.com

BOCA RATON — For a second consecutive year, Lynn University students will forgo electricity and running water, living in a self-built, Haitian-like dwelling for one week on campus to honor, remember and raise money for Haitians devastated by the Jan. 12 earthquake.

From Monday, April 12 – Friday, April 16, exactly three months after Haiti was struck and Lynn lost six of it’s own community members, more than a dozen students intend to partake in the demonstration by sleeping inside the house and in tents adjacent to it.

The students participating in “Students for the Poor Week” are members of Students For The Poor, a campus group organized in support of Food For The Poor, the international nonprofit dedicated to alleviating hunger and suffering in Haiti and elsewhere. The house they will be living in will mirror others that Lynn students have raised money for and erected in Jamaica and Haiti over the last year.

Throughout the week, students have vowed to fast — eating only one meal a day of rice and beans, and they will leave the house only to attend class and occasionally, to shower at a nearby residence hall.

“We want to demonstrate how Haitians live everyday,” said Dan Hennessey, president of Students of the Poor, “and show students how they can get involved and help the poor from home without traveling to Haiti or Jamaica.”

Students will start the week by building the house, a pre-fab structure supplied by Food For The Poor, on Monday in Perper Plaza, outside of the Lynn Student Center. The house will be disassembled at noon on Friday.

On Thursday at 6 p.m., Students For The Poor members, including several of the students who returned from the Journey of Hope J-term trip following the quake, will host a forum on campus to discuss their experiences in Haiti and Jamaica. A representative from Food For The Poor will also be available to answer questions.

During this demonstration last year, students raised more than $33,000 to build a Jamaican school water well, and buy 1,000 pounds of rice and beans. “Our goal is to match what we raised last year,” Hennessey said.